Recruited the first 51 Swedish colonists to settle New Sweden, Maine on July 23, 1870 and continued to support the community throughout his lifetime. Donated land for Thomas Park and funds for maintenance. Gave organs, church bells, and pews to churches in New Sweden and Woodland. Visited the community many times. Called the community “my children in the woods.” Spoke fluent Swedish. Known by his trademark long forked beard. Called “Father Thomas.”
Thomas was 33 years old in 1870;
member of Maine state house of representatives, 1873-75; Speaker of the Maine State House of Representatives, 1874-75; member of Maine state senate, 1879; delegate to Republican National Convention from Maine, 1880; U.S. Minister to Sweden, 1883-85, 1889-94, 1898-1905. Member, Phi Beta Kappa.

Earned $122.50 as winter term instructor in 1857 of one-room school house built in Cape Elizabeth in 1849; Purchased in 1917 by Thomas, moved to original location and restored and dedicated on April 22, 1919;

U. S. Bearer of Dispatches; Vice Consul-General at Constantinople; Acting Consul at Moldavic, Sweden; completed legal studies at Harvard; Maine bar 1866; Maine Commissioner of Public Lands 1869; Maine Commissioner of Immigration 1870;

“On July 4, 1883, he delivered the oration at the quarto-Millennial celebration of the founding of Portland by his own ancestor, Cleeve; and immediately thereafter sailed to Stockholm as Minister Resident to Sweden and Norway, which post he filled until the close of President Arthur's administration in 1885. Here he was the first Minister to address the King in his own language; the first to hoist the American flag, and the first to successfully assist in starting a line of direct steamships between Sweden and the United States.” “ . . .orator at the great Swedish celebration at Minneapolis in commemoration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the first Swedish settlement in America-New Sweden on the Delaware founded by Gustavus Adoiphus.” “ . . .an entertaining writer. He published, in 1869, a translation of an historical novel, "The Last Athenian," from the Swedish of Victor Rydberg; and he has at intervals written many spirited articles for Harper's Monthly, The Cosmopolitan, and other magazines and periodicals. His greatest literary work, however, is "Sweden and the Swedes," a richly illustrated volume of seven hundred and fifty pages, published in 1892 in both America and Sweden, and in both the English and Swedish languages.”

www.stimson.org/wmd/pdf/cole.pdf
“William Widgery Thomas, the American Minister to the United Kingdoms of Sweden-Norway under Presidents Arthur and Harrison, returned to the United States in the 1890s with the self-appointed mission of correcting American views on the “name and fame” of the Swedes.”

Wrote a book entitled “Sweden and the Swedes” that was published in 1892 (http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/wcpa/top3mset/4234416c3484648d.html)

“Thomas, J., William Widgery (Maine, 1874, 1875), the son of William Widgery and Elizabeth White (Goddard) Thomas, was born in Portland, Cumberland County, Maine, on August 26, 1839. A direct descendant of the Welshman George Cleeve, first white settler in Portland, Thomas's grandfather was Maine's treasure from 1823 to 1830, and his father was a member of the Maine legislature in 1855 and 1856, and mayor of Portland from 1861 to 1862. Educated in the Portland public schools, Thomas graduated from Bowdoin College in 1860, a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and read law. Interrupting his legal studies, Thomas traveled abroad to carry a U. S. treaty to Turkey. In rapid succession he became vice consul general at Constantinople, and acting consul at Galatz, Moldavia, before President Lincoln appointed him was counsel at Gothenburg, Sweden. Returning to Maine in 1865, Thomas concluded his legal education at Harvard, passed the bar in 1866, and practiced law in Portland when not engaged in diplomatic activities or politics. After serving as Maine commissioner of public lands in 1869, Thomas accepted an appointment as Maine commissioner of immigration in 1870. During his tenure, which lasted from1870 to 1873, he secured legislation to establish a Swedish colony in Maine, recruited settlers in Sweden for the colony, and settled fifty-one Swedes in the northern Maine community of New Sweden, Aroostook County, in 1870. After living in the settlement for three years, Thomas returned to Portland, and won election as a Republican to the Maine house in 1873, 1874, and 1875. He presided as speaker over the 1874 and 1875 sessions. He served a term in the Maine senate in 1879 but declined renomination. President of the Maine Republican convention in 1875, Thomas attended the Republican National convention in 1885, and as envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Sweden and Norway from 1889 to 1894, and 1897 to 1905. He translated The Last Athenian (1869) from Swedish and wrote Sweden and the Swedes (2 vols., 1891). Thomas married Dagmar Elizabeth Tornebladh, the daughter of Henrik Ragnar Tornebladh, a director of the Bank of Sweden and a member of the Swedish upper house, in Stockholm on October 11, 1887. They had three children before she died in 1912. On June 2, 1915 Thomas married his late wife's sister, Mrs. Aina Tornebladh. He attended the Congregational Church. Thomas died in Portland on February 25, 1927. “
(Biographical Review: Cumberland County, Maine, p. 206; Biographical Sketches of Maine Legislators, 1874; Brief Biographies: Maine, p. 255; Henry Chase, Representative)51

Listed in the archives of Virginia Heritage:
Thomas' Brother Bill in Portland, ME to Henry Goddard Thomas September 17, 1868 Letter: 8 89

“OCCUPATION:Served U.S. Consular Service in Turkey, Rumania and Sweden,
1862-1865. Studied at Harvard Law School and practiced in Portland 1866-1883.
Maine Commissioner of Public Lands 1869, Commissioner of Immigration 1870-1873.
Served in Maine Legislature 1873-1875, as Speaker 1874-1875 and in the Senate
in 1879.
Appointed U.S. Minister to Sweden and Norway by President Chester Arthur
in 1883-85 and was re-appointed 1889-94 and 1897-1905, making his home in Sweden
after marrying a Swedish noblewoman. Upon his wife's death after some 24 years
of marriage he married her sister.
In 1870 he was sent by the Maine legislature to Sweden to recruit emigrants to
settle in Aroostook County; the first party of 50 founded the town of New
Sweden and by 1880 more than 800 Swedes had settled in the area.”87

“His brother, William Widgery, diplomatist, born in Portland, Maine, 26 August, 1839, was graduated at Bowdoin in 1860. He studied law, was admitted to the bar, appointed in 1862 United States vice-consul at Galatz, Moldavia, and the same year United States consul at Gothenburg, Sweden, where he remained in charge till 1865. He was one of the board of commissioners for the settlement of the public lands of Maine in 1869, and in 1870, as commissioner of emigration for Maine, went to Sweden to recruit a colony. On his return he founded New Sweden in the forests of northern Maine, which is now one of the most flourishing agricultural settlements of New England. He was a member of the house of representatives of the Maine legislature in 1873-'5, and its speaker in 1874--'5, became a member of the state senate in 1879, and was United States minister to Sweden and Norway in 1883-'5. On the occasion of his presentation he addressed the king in a speech in the Swedish language. He has published "The Last Athenian," translated from the Swedish of Victor Rydborg (Philadelphia, 1869), and has now almost completed "Sweden and the Swedes," which is to be issued simultaneously in New York and Stockholm, Sweden.”90