Born: October 10, 1812, Isle of Purbeck, Dorset, England.
Died: May 6, 1882, Nashville, Tennessee.
Buried: Mount Olivet Cemetery, Nashville, Tennessee.
Thomas was the son of James Summers, and husband of Narsilla Brutan Sexton.
After emigrating to America, he was admitted to the Methodist Baltimore [Maryland] Conference in 1835.
From 1840–43 he was a missionary in Texas, where he founded a Methodist community on Galveston Island. He moved to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in 1844, and Charleston, South Carolina, in 1846.
From 1845 he was secretary of the Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and was also a book editor.
Subsequently, he was Professor of Theology and pastor at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee.
He was chairman of the Hymn Book Committee of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and edited the Songs of Zion, 1851, and the Wesleyan Psalter, 1855.
If you know where to get a good photo of Summers (head & shoulders, at least 200×300 pixels),