See http://www.steen-frost.org/Pwd/Docs/Timmons_files/1913_Autobiography.pdf for Thomas Holmes TImmons’ own autobiography, written a year before he died for the McDuffie Progress, the newspaper serving Thomson, Georgia where he then lived (and is now buried).

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“The Timmons family, dating back to early colonial days in maryland and south Carolina, settled in Hancock county, Georgia aboutr 1795. There is a direct descent from Revolutionary [War] soldiers. (See ‘Ancestral Etchings” [below].) Thomas Holmes Timmons, springing from a long line of Methodist ministers, was himself a minister of that denomination.

“In 1861 he volunteered for service in the 56th Georgia Regiment of the Confederate Army. He sered in the Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia campaigns. He was captured and sent as a P.O.W. on December 16th, 1864 to Johnson’s Island (Camp Chase), Ohio. He was a chaplain while in army life, and while a prisoner on Johnson’s Island, was Lieutenant of Company C, 5th Georgia Regiment of Gen. D. S. Lee’s Corps.

“His younger brother, “BEL” Timmons, also served in the Confederate Army, was also captured by the Yankees, and was also sent to this Camp Chase by the Yankees, being there at the same time as his brother. Thomas H. Timmons has referred to Camp Chase as “that horrible place.” (His reputation for veracity being known, it is a safe conclusion that the place was a Yankee match for Confederate Andersonville--with devastating cold weather added. It therefore remains for a Southern MacKinley Kantor to depict the horrors of Camp Chase.)

“After the [Civil] War, he joined the Alabama Methodist Conference in 1865. Thomas H. Timmons transferred to the Florida conference , where his first charge was at Calhoun, Florida. In 1869, he has transferred to the Georgia Conference. He was active in the ranks for thirty years, until he was given superannuated status in 1899, and sent to Thomson, Ga. to live. He was the author of many magazine and newspaper articles and of two books, “The First of Life was made for the Last” and “Beyond the Valley of Shadows.” This second book, published in 1914, contains a wealth of genealogical information about the MsDuffie and Thomson people. He died at Thomson on October 8th, 1914 and is buried on the Timmons Square, Thomson Cemetery, grave marked.

“In an unpublished sketch, he said of himself: ‘The soul, secure in its immortality, smiles at the drawn dagger and defies its point. I wish all men well. My motto has been not to live and let live, but to live and help live ...’

“He was thrice married. First, at Madison Georgia, Oct. 27, 1870 to Mary Elizabeth Booth (born Nov. 24, 1853 in Elbert County, Georgia, died May 1, 1885 at Sparta, Georgia). Her father, Andrew Booth, served in the Confederate Army and was killed in the Battle of Atlanta, July 1864. The five chlldren of this first marriage were: Mary Eunice (b. Mar 31, 1872, Troup Co., Ga.); Andrew Miller (b. Mar 24, 1875, Atlanta, Ga.); Lovie Myer (b. June 13, 1879 at Rome, Ga.); Herbert Fletcher (April 1,1882 at Thomoson, Ga.); and Annie Booth (b. April 16, 1885).

“The second marriage of Thomas Holmes Timmons was to Georgia Vaughn on Oct. 8, 1890. They had one child, George Vaughn, who was born August 2nd, 1891 at Culloden, Georgia.

“By his third marriage to Sumter Arnold McCorkle on April 25th, 1899 there was one child, a son: Thomas Hezekiah Timmons, born March 13th 1900 at Thomson, Georgia. Married October 27th, 1930 at Aiken county, South Carolina to Francis Irene Meeks, daughter of Andrew Price Meeks and Eva Cohen Meeks, the latter is the daughter of Edward Benjamin Cohen and Adelaide Lyon Cohen. Thomas H. and Frances Meeks Timmons live at their country place (acquired 1934) at Beech Island, S.C.”

-- From the mimeographed Timmons-McCorkle Genealogy, pp. 75-76.

Thomas Holmes Timmons, together with his son Thomas Hezekiah Timmons, his son’s wife Frances Meeks Timmons and her father Andrew Price Meeks are buried in the Thomson City Cemetery at the intersection of highways GA 223 and GA 17 (US 78). The Timmons plot is a square outlined in brick approximately one-third of the distance from the east (Hwy 17) side of the cemetery and two-thirds of the distance from the south (Hwy 223) side. A photo of Thomas Tommins’ gravestone can be seen in http://www.steen-frost.org/Pub/Docs/Timmons_files/1914_Yarbrough_THT_Tribute.pdf

See http://www.steen-frost.org/Pwd/Docs/Timmons_files/1914_Three_Obits.pdf for three announcements of the death of Thomas Holmes Timmons that appeared in October 1914 in the McDuffie Progress, the newspaper serving Thomson, Georgia.

“Papa Timmons was a wonderful man. He had many sad and many happy experiences in his life. I imagine your father told you about his Civil War experiences. Captured in the fighting in Tennessee and spent two years in a very cold prison on Johnsons Island in Lake Erie. Soon after I came to Carrollton, Ala. I met an elderly gentleman who told me about his experiences in the Johnson Island prison. He was sure that he and my father were in the same unit but of course couldn't remember names. They were both officers. Lieutenant I think. My father was very religious and the experience there was a very rough one for him. I suspect his war experiences haunted him more or less the balance of his life.

“After retiring from the ministry he wrote articles for his county paper and made talks every Monday morning to the High School and endeared himself to parents and students. At his funeral the High School marched in a body to seats reserved for them and sang at the conclusion Papa's favorite, ‘Shall We Gather at the River.’ I think that touched your father more than anything else said or done.”

-- Thomas Vaugn Timmons in a Nov. 15, 1978 letter to Jean Timmons Frost

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Excerpt from a profile of John M. Curtis (1826-1904) written by Thomas Holmes Timmons:

When in 1882 the author of this volume enterprised a great educational plant in this town to be called the Augusta District High School, Mr. Curtis became his "right hand man." The school was inaugurated but assumed the name of “Pierce Institute” in honor of Bishop George Foster Pierce, and was in operation twenty-five years, conferring rich blessings on the people of that generation as enduring as eternity.

-- Loving Memorials: Beyond the Valley of the Shadows, Chapter 51, p. 140.

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On 15 May 1862, Thomas enlisted, along with his younger brother Hammil, as a private in Company C, 56th Georgia Infantry Regiment.

T.H. Timmons of Company C, 56th Georgia Regiment is included on the “Indigent Soldiers’ Pension Roll” for reason of infirmity and poverty. He was discharged in Ohio [from the Johnson Island prisoner of war camp] on 12/16/1864, and received payments from 1903 to 1913.
-- McDuffie County Ordinary Court Records, 1872-1927 (found in the Thomson-McDuffie County Library)

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Occasionally, his name is written as Thomas H. W. Timmons where the added “W” presumably stands for William. In his own writing he used either Thomas H. Timmons, T.H. Timmons, or occasionally, just T. H. T.

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Thomas Holmes Timmons entered itinerancy in 1869
-- History of Georgia Methodism, 1786-1866. Geo. G. Smith, A. B. Caldwell, Publ., 1913. (Appendix: Official Register and Directory of the Georgia Conference--1912-13)

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The great revival of religion in 1858 sweeping over the country had led men capable of making such observations to prophesy a great catastrophe in the near future and that God intended this wonderful season of refreshing from his presence to prepare our people for it. … Thomas Holmes Timmons took the appointments of our bishops gladly, counting not his life dear unto him even in age and feebleness.

-- George Wesley Yarbrough in In Boyhood and Other Days in Georgia, M.E. Church, South, 1917, p. 243.