Butte County
Biographies
WILLIAM H. THOMPSON
WILLIAM H. THOMPSON.--America, in earlier years the haven of those stanch, earnest souls who sought liberty of thought and speech in their religious convictions, is still the objective of many of our English cousins. The father of William H. Thompson was a native of Lancashire County, England, and came to America as a farm boy. He married Miss Jane Herring in Crawford County, Ohio, and soon after his marriage moved farther west to Defiance County, Ohio, then a wilderness, the depths of whose trackless forests were almost impervious to anything but a wild beast or an Indian. Here he began to clear up a farm. His wife bore him five children, namely: Elizabeth, Eli, Isabelle, William H., and Martha, three of whom are living. Elizabeth, now Mrs. Cornelius Bevington, of Parson, Kan., Eli, who still lives on the old home in the Buckeye state, and William H., who was born in Milford Township, Defiance County, Ohio, February 1, 1859, and who at the tender age of six years had the misfortune to lose his father. William H. grew to manhood on the old home place, assisting his widowed mother in clearing up the farm. For two years of that time he worked on a farm near Tiffin. In 1881, in company with William Light, he came West to Washington, working for a time in a timber camp, making railroad ties. In the fall of that year he came to Oroville, Butte County, Cal., where he worked for Billy Ross in a blacksmith shop. He soon made the acquaintance of the Hon. W. A. Shippee, for whom he broke a number of very wild mules. Mr. Shippee, well pleased with the young man’s efficient work and genuine worth, gave him employment on his large ranch near Nelson, Butte County, where he remained for two years. He afterward worked seven seasons at logging for the Lumpkin Lumber Company. In 1888 he married Miss Mary Jane Thatcher and settled at Wyandotte, buying, improving and selling two places. His wife died in 1908 leaving no children. He again entered the matrimonial state, wedding Mrs. Alice Allen, a member of an old pioneer family, and widow of Henry Allen, the father of her four children: Elbert, Vernon, Erle, and June. Her father, Edward Lathrop, was born in Missouri and as a child crossed the plains in 1850. His father, stricken with cholera, died en route to California and was buried on the plains. His mother, Miranda Lathrop, whose maiden name was Fowler, settled in Oroville, Butte County, and opened the first hotel ever kept in that place. Her son Edward was a schoolmate of E. W. Fogg.
Mrs. Alice Allen-Thompson is a well-educated, high-minded woman. In May, 1914, she was appointed custodian of the Wyandotte branch of the Butte County Library, on the shelves of which one hundred books are kept for use of its patrons, who are entitled to order any book kept in the County Library. Mrs. Thompson is a prominent member and active worker in the Methodist Episcopal Church at Wyandotte, and also one of the trustees of the church.
Mr. Thompson’s political affiliations are Republican. He has been and still continues to be a hard-working man, one of the positive convictions, worthy, reliable, and kindly disposed toward all; enjoying the comforts of his well ordered home on their thirty-three-and-a-half-acre-olive-and-peach ranch, one quarter of a mile east of the attractive little town of Wyandotte. This place he has developed out of the raw land, beginning in 1893, until now the trees yield an income commensurate with the expenditure of time, money, and labor.
Transcribed
by Joyce Rugeroni.
Source: "History of
Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages 1325-1326, Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2010 Joyce Rugeroni.
Golden Nugget Library's Butte County Biographies