Thomas Tasker was born in Liverpool, England, in 1854, a son of John and Elizabeth Tasker.  He was married Aug. 8, 1836, to Elizabeth Vose, also a native of England.  Mr. Tasker became early in life much interested in the United States.  Being a great reader every source of information obtainable was studied, and in 1850 he left his family in their native country and, accompanied by his brother William, came to this country.  They came as far west as Angola when they were obliged to stop on account of scarcity of money, having but 50 cents left.  Mr. Tasker found employment and went to work and at the end of two years he had enough to pay for thirty acres of land and send for  his family, who joined him in his new home that year.  Mr. Tasker resides on section 8, Scott Township.  His finely improved farm contains eighty-three acres and his residence is commodious and comfortable.  He is now in the enjoyment of well earned prosperity.  While he has a love for his native land he thinks that no other country affords the same opportunities as America for a poor man to gain a home and affluence.  He is one of the best informed men in the county on statistical history, not only of this country but of the civilized world, being a great reader of works of a standard character.  His wife and helpmate died March 6,1875; his brother William died in this township, March 18, 1876.  Their children were--Mary Ann, died Oct. 12, 1847; Richard, who was killed in Virginia while a soldier in the war for the Union; William, of this township, also a soldier in the civil war; Elkizabeth, widow of James Pew; Sarah, Thomas, Rosetta and Charley, in this township; James died at the age of eighteen months, soon after the family came to this country.  Mr. Tasker has great respect for honesty and  morality,  but none for creeds and dogmas.  He hates the very sight of a  scoundrel, especially one that is always prating about another world.  He thinks that if the  churches were made into school-houses and the preachers into teachers, with one-half the expenses that it takes to run the churches we could have a paradise in this world that was never dreamed of in another.  He thinks we neglect this world for the sake of another, and that other a very doubtful one; or, in other words, he believes one world at a time is all we can attend to.
 

Submitted By: Cheryl Gleason