David Thomas (November 3, 1794 – June 20, 1882) was a native of Wales who was influential in the birth of the Industrial Revolution in the United States.

The Lehigh Valley region, being rich in both anthracite coal and iron ore, was the perfect setting for Thomas's creation.

Thomas and his son, Samuel, walked into the infant community of Catasauqua, Pennsylvania, on the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company's towpath on July 9, 1839.

By that time the community was no longer known as Craneville, but as Catasauqua;[1] Thomas had named both his company and the town in which he founded it after his former employer in Wales.

[citation needed] A devout Presbyterian, Thomas founded the first church in the borough of Catasauqua, in which residents still worship.

[2][3] He, his wife Elizabeth, and generations of their descendants are all buried in the Thomas family vault, a sort of underground mausoleum at Fairview Cemetery in West Catasauqua.

Though Peckitt was a shrewd businessman, he could not hide forever the fact that the 20th century brought changes to the iron industry, and that the company was beginning to lose money.