James C. Thompson

As printed in 1907

JAMES C. THOMPSON.

At a time when people of moderate means are moving from the city to the country and are building their homes where they may have the trees and flowers like the ordinary country folk, who through their ancestors and by themselves have been raising stock and cultivating the fields for generations, we turn with particular interest to one who has been a successful farmer of Richland township for many years.

Mr. Thompson was born May 30. 1853, in Franklin county, Indiana. He was a son of John and Mary (Jenkins) Thompson, both natives of Franklin county, Indiana. The father was born in 1822 and passed away in 1902. The mother was born in 1828 and is still living on the old homestead in Indiana, where her husband had lived from the time he was eleven years of age. He bought land patents of the old soldiers of the war of 1846 for one dollar an acre, and in 1855 came to Guthrie county, where he located a section, so that when he returned home his land had cost him a dollar and twenty cents an acre, including his expenses to Iowa. He followed the <KCupation of farming all ins life, and during the Civil war added to these duties those of a dry goods and grocery merchant. Mr. Thompson was a man of large death. a great part of which was made by raising an unusually fine breed of Poland China hogs. Mr. and Mrs. Thompson were the parents of five children: Orpha. who married L. L. Biddinger, of Franklin county, Indiana; Viola, whose loss the parents were called upon to mourn when she was only thirteen years of age: James C. the subject of our sketch; J., living in Guthrie county, and John A., a successful physician of Cincinnati. Ohio.-

James C. Thompson is indebted to the public schools of his home locality for his early education, and for three years he was a student at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana. 'hen he was twenty-one years of age he came to Panora, Iowa, where he taught school for one year, but the farm offered greater attractions and he bought of his father one hundred and sixty acres of the land which had been purchased in 1855. Every improvement on the place today Mr. Thompson has made by his own labor and industry, and he now owns three hundred and twenty acres of as fine land as can be found in the county. In 1885 he was tempted to buy a hardware business in Jamaica, to which town he moved. For two years he conducted this business but at the end of that time was glad to return to his former home and to the pursuit of farming. In 1892 he again bought out the same business, but in 1897 he once more sold and returned to the farm in 1898. He makes a specialty of the breeding and sale of Shetland ponies, of which he has at present a herd of about thirty. He has the most beautiful full-blooded Shetland stallion in Guthrie county, whose sire is No. 1 in the register book, dam No. 16. He is No. 351 — a beautiful specimen of his kind. Of equal importance is ]\Mr. Thompson's specialty of full-blooded Scotch collie dogs.

On the 1 6th of January, 1878, Mr. Thompson was married to Miss Generva

Faucett. who was born in Franklin county, Indiana, August 8, 1855. She is a daughter of John and Sarah (Gillespie) Faucett, both natives of Butler county, Ohio. The mother died in 1881. at the age of seventy, while the father passed away in 1886, having attained the sixtieth year of his age. Mrs. Thompson has one sister, Mrs. A. C. Zartman, living in Perry, Iowa. The rest of the family are still living in Indiana. Mr. and Mrs. Thompson are the parents of four children: Winifred, who is teaching in the public schools in Panora, Iowa; J. Irwin, who was educated at Ames and is teaching the agricultural course in the Panora high school; Mary E. and Lena F., who are at home.

Mr. Thompson and his family are attendants of the:Methodist church and are among its chief and earnest supporters. His political support is given to the democratic party. An intelligent and well educated man, he has taken an active interest in educational work, has served as township trustee for five years and as township clerk for nine years, being the present incumbent in the latter office. He is a public-spirited and progressive citizen, who has always been ready to contribute to the general good, and his labors have greatly advanced the material progress and prosperity of Guthrie county.

As printed in Past and present of Guthrie County, Iowa : together with biographical sketches of many of its prominent and leading citizens and illustrious dead (1907). See the original pages. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.