When Thomas was seven, his father married Susanna Davis, the daughter of Michael Francklin, who had been Nova Scotia's Lieutenant Governor.

[2] He attended University of King's College in Windsor, from which he graduated in 1815 to become a lawyer who practiced at Annapolis Royal.

Haliburton's fame came from his writings on history, politics, farm improvement, and from his The Clockmaker serial, which first appeared in the Novascotian and was published throughout the British Empire, that described the humorous adventures of Sam Slick.

[5] The pair travelled together to Scotland to investigate their common ancestry, and intended to tour Canada and the United States of America together.

[citation needed] In 1884, faculty and students at his alma mater founded a literary society in honour of the College's most celebrated man of letters.

[citation needed] The mention "hurly on the long pond on the ice", which appears in the second volume of The Attaché, or Sam Slick in England, a work of fiction published in 1844, has been interpreted by some as a reference to an ice-hockey-like game he may have played during his years at King's College.