Background
The eldest child of mariner William Bacon and his second wife, Elizabeth Richardson, Thomas was probably born a year or so after their 1710 marriage on the Isle of Man.
The eldest child of mariner William Bacon and his second wife, Elizabeth Richardson, Thomas was probably born a year or so after their 1710 marriage on the Isle of Man.
Thomas acquired a good education.
He was "of the Custom House, Dublin" in 1736-37, when he published A Compleat System of the Revenue of Ireland, in Its Branches of Import, Export, and Inland Duties. On September 23, 1744, having previously studied under Thomas Wilson, Bishop of Sodor and Man, he was by him ordained deacon at Kirk Michael; and on March 10, 1744/5 he was made priest "in order to go into the Plantations". He arrived at Oxford, Talbot County, Md. , in October of the same year, having been appointed domestic chaplain to the Proprietary, an honorary office apparently, though it seems to have ensured his support of the Proprietary, a support which later made him many enemies who did not hesitate to attack his character, and interfere with his projects. He was appointed curate of St. Peter's parish, and at the death of the incumbent, a few months later, he became rector. In 1747 he made Dover his residence.
Although himself a slaveholder, he was a pioneer in the education of the Negro. He preached two sermons to slaves addressing them as "my dear black brothers and sisters, " and assuring them as large a share in the kingdom of heaven as the greatest man alive, if they behaved themselves aright.
The motive of their publication, he says, was to "raise a spirit of emulation among his brethren to attempt something in their several parishes toward bringing home so great a number of wandering souls to Christ. " They were followed by Four Sermons upon the Great and Indispensable Duty of All Christian Masters and Mistresses to Bring up Their Negro Slaves in the Knowledge and Fear of God, London (1750), which was placed in the list of books for distribution by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge in England. In 1750 he inaugurated a movement which resulted in the establishment of a Charity Working School, a free manual-training school, in which there was no distinction of sex, race, or condition of servitude. Troubles came to him in his later years. His wife died in 1755, and his only son was drowned at sea.
The same year a mulatto, Rachel Beck, charged him with an offense against law and morals. He seems to have been acquitted, or the case dropped, for later he sued her successfully for slander.
For not publishing the banns or securing licenses in either case, Bacon was heavily fined. Nevertheless, in 1759, he was appointed reader at All Saints, Frederick, the most valuable living in the Province, and in 1762 was inducted as rector. Here also he exerted himself in behalf of popular education. After years of painstaking labor, and in the face of political opposition, he finally published in 1765, a work of much importance, Laws of Maryland at Large, etc. , a compilation of all the laws of the Province, beginning with the first legislation in 1638. It was printed in Annapolis, and "in many particulars it formed the most elaborate and laborious piece of editorial work until that time undertaken in America, " and "it happens also to have been a specimen of typography which was not exceeded in dignity and beauty by any production of a colonial press" (L. C. Wroth, "The Reverend Thomas Bacon, and His Edition of the Laws of Maryland at Large, " A History of Printing in Colonial Maryland, 1922). Bacon died in Frederick but his burial place is now unknown.
A man of varied ability, social proclivities, and musical talent, he was popular and influential.
In 1757 he married Elizabeth, daughter of Col. Thomas Bozman of Oxford Neck.
