Born near what would become Amsterdam, Virginia, Thomas Shanks was the son of the former Hannah Morrison and her husband David Shanks. Thomas Shanks survived two wives. He married Grace Metcalfe Thomas in 1825, and she bore two daughters and a son who survived their parents. Five years after her death, Thomas Shanks married widow Mary T. Harvey Kyle in June 16, 1838, but had no further children in the seven years before her death.
Career
Botetourt County voters first elected Shanks to represent them as one of Botetourt County's two representatives in the Virginia House of Delegates in 1829. He temporarily unseated veteran politician and lawyer Fleming B. Miller and served alongside lawyer and manufacturer John T. Anderson, who would become a veteran legislator. Nearly a decade later, in 1837, Botetourt County voters elected Shanks once again as one of their delegates, this time alongside Whig and fellow slaveowner William M. Peyton, and re-elected both men that fall, although the following year a census realignment cut the county's representation to just one man, Joseph Hannah. Thomas Shanks may have been a merchant, for the New and Comprehensive Gazetteer of Virginia published by Joseph Martin in 1835 described six mercantile establishments in Fincastle, as well as 3 churches and 260 homes. One of the general stores was run by Kyles, another by Utz and Hannah, and another by Shanks and Anderson. However, Thomas Shanks' name does not appear in the 1830 U.S. federal census. In the 1840 U.S. Federal census, the last before his death as well as the last before listing occupations, Thomas Shanks appears on both the Fincastle page, as well as on the general Botetourt County census enumeration.
Death
Thomas Shanks died on May 7, 1849 and is buried at the Fincastle Presbyterian Church cemetery. His son, Rev. David William Shanks, would receive a degree from Washington College, become a minister in Rockbridge County and later in Danville, survive the American Civil War and likewise marry twice. Thomas Shanks' two daughters who survived him were: Grace Ellen Shanks Glasgow and Eliza Cassandra Shanks McPheeters. Rev. D.W. Shanks neither owned slaves nor enlisted in the military, and in addition to his sons Lewis and David Shanks, had three long-lived but unmarried daughters: Margaret Cabell Shanks, Eliza McPheeters Shanks and Juliet Irvine Shanks.
