William Henry Thomes

William Henry Thomes was an American author born in Portland, Maine, in 1824, and he grew up in Boston. As a young man he went to sea in the California hide trade, and his travels took him to places including California, Honolulu, the East Indies, and Australia.

Those experiences shaped much of his writing. He worked as a printer, reporter, and editor, then built a career writing popular adventure fiction and travel-based narratives such as Lewey and I, The Bushrangers, On Land and Sea, and A Gold Hunter’s Adventures. His books often drew on the energy of maritime life, frontier travel, and the gold-rush era.

Thomes died in 1895. He is remembered as a lively 19th-century storyteller whose fiction blended firsthand experience with the excitement of historical adventure.