Listed in living in dwelling #119 in the 1860 Census for Petaluma Township, Sonoma Co. (Petaluma Post Office) as Thos Van Winkle, age 44, a farmer born in Indiana with $1500 of personal estate. Enumerated with Polly Ann (a. 29, bp. IN), Samantha (a. 9, bp. IA), William (a. 7, bp. IA), Nancy (a. 5, bp. CA), Louisa (a. 3, bp. CA), and Sam (a. 1 bp. CA). Also, living in the same dwelling are Andw Mc Nonen as head of household (a. 40, bp. NY, farmer, $1000 real estate, $500 personal estate), and Thos B Mc Nonen (a. 8, bp. IA).

Thomas and his family were members of the 1854 Faught family wagon train from Drakesville, Iowa to a 160 acre plot of land later known as the Liberty and Iowa districts of Petaluma (about 4 miles from town) An account of this migration can be found on the bottom half of http://users.ap.net/~chenae/socotext.html.

Thomas Van Winkle was also a member of the Liberty Church, a Primitive Baptist Church near Petaluma which also was attended by Larkin Davenport Cockrill.