Thomas J. Vanderslice, a prominent figure in the earlier affairs of the Great Nemaha Indian Agency, a public man of the territory and state, was a native of Scott County, Kentucky, born in 1827. He enlisted from his native state as a soldier for the Mexican war, but never saw service. In 1853 he came to Kansas and stopped at the Great Nemaha Agency, where his father, Maj. Daniel Vanderslice, had just assumed the agency there of the Iowas, Sacs, Foxes and Kickapoos, and from 1854 to 1856 served as farmer and miller for the Sacs and Foxes, He was elected to the Territorial Legislature of 1860 and to the State Legislature of 1868, and served two terms as sheriff of Doniphan County, beginning 1874 and 1876. During the Civil war he belonged to the state troops who repelled Sterling Price in his threatened raid against Kansas City. Shortly before his death he moved to Oklahoma, dying at Perry March 18, 1902.