Santa
Clara County
Biographies
GILBERT
W. THOMPSON
GILBERT W. THOMPSON. Possessing mechanical skill and talent of a
high order, Gilbert W. Thompson is employed as chief engineer at the San
Jose Ice Company’s plant, where he has installed an oil burner of his own
invention and manufacture. He has fully
tested this burner, using it with great success, and under the name of “Our Own
Burner” has applied for a patent for it.
A son of William Thompson, he was born April 19, 1869, at
Millcreek, Huntingdon county, Pa. He is descended form one of the oldest
families of his native state, and comes of honored patriotic stock, his
grandfather Thompson having served with Commodore Perry on Lake Erie in the war
of 1812.
William Thompson spent his entire life
in Pennsylvania, and was a successful agriculturist He married Mary Gillen, also a lifelong
resident of the Keystone state, and they became the parents of fourteen
children, thirteen of whom grew to years of maturity, and ten of whom are still
living. One son, Robert A.
Thompson, served in the Civil War.
The twelfth child in succession of birth
of the parental household, Gilbert W. Thompson, remained on the home farm
until thirteen years old, receiving his early education in the district
schools. Leaving home then he went to
Altoona, Pa., where he was apprenticed for three years at the machinist’s trade
in the Pennsylvania Railway shops. Going
thence to Cincinnati, Ohio, he entered the employ of the Bly-Meyer Machine
Company, manufacturers of ice machines.
In 1886, still in the employ of the same company, Mr. Thompson came
to California and put in several ice machines for the firm. He was afterward with the Union Iron Works as
a machinist for eighteen months, subsequently being assistant engineer for the
Union Stock Yard Company for a year and a half.
The ensuing two years Mr. Thompson was engineer of the San Jose Ice &
Cold Storage Company, and then went to San Francisco, where as an employe of W. W. Montague & Co. He
assisted in the construction and installing of heating and ventilating plants
for five years, during which time he put heating and ventilating apparatus in
many buildings, including the Call and Ferry buildings, the Theological
Seminary, the Emma Spreckles building, the Park Lodge
and Museum, and the Fabiola Hospital. In
1899 Mr. Thompson accepted the position of foreman at the Fulton Iron
Works, where he remained two years.
Coming then to San Jose, he was in the employ of the National Ice
Company for three months, when, in August, 1901, he accepted his present position
as chief engineer at the plant of the San Jose Ice & Cold Storage
Company, where he is meeting with great success in the use of the oil burner
which he invented.
Mr. Thompson has one daughter,
Hazel Thompson. Fraternally he is a
member of the Ancient Foresters and of the Woodmen of the World. He also belongs to the International Union of
Stationary Engineers, being vice-president of the Local Union No. 171, and is
president of the Iron Trades Council, which he helped to organize. In national politics he is identified with
the Socialist party.
Transcribed by Donna Toole.
Source: History
of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast Counties,
California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A. M., Page 1346. The Chapman Publishing
Co., Chicago, 1904.
© 2016 Donna Toole.