Honey Grove, Texas

J. Q. Thompson - 1831-1917

Published in the Honey Grove Signal-Citizen about 1938
Written by H. P. Allen, assisted by W. J. Erwin

Jonathon Quincy Thompson was born. Nov. 4, 1831, in Tuscaloosa, Ala., being the oldest son of Azariah Newton Thompson and his wife Permelia Herd Darden. Mr. Thompson grew to young manhood in this city, once teaching school, but most of the time was spent in overseeing his father's plantation and slaves and as clerk in a general merchandise store. As he grew to more mature manhood and not very strong (physically speaking) he responded to the call of the West - coming to Texas on horseback shortly before the Civil War, landing at Rusk, Texas, taking a clerkship there also. When war was declared he returned to Tuscaloosa to enlist, but failing health prevented his going into active service, so he was put in charge of a commissary department, also helping to look after a large family of brothers (won of whom was killed at Gettysburg and another at Mobile after the surrender) and sisters.

After the havoc of war was over, his father having died, Texas again called to him. With two brothers and four sisters he came by wagon. The oldest sister having been married in 1851 to Mr. James M. Williams, was then living in Paris, Texas.

J. Q. Thompson chose Marshall as his home, opening a general merchandise store in the spot where Wiseman's store has stood for more than three score years. At Marshall he married Lucy Clemmons Finley, who was making her home with her uncle, Capt. Stephen D. Rainey. Here one daughter, Ella, now Mrs. J. P. Russell, was born. Ill health made it necessary for Mr. Thompson to sell his business in Marshall and move to Pars, where another daughter, Fannin, now Mrs. J. H. Lowry, was born. The doctor advised open air work, so after one year of rest in Paris he bought the farm known as the Lewis Chiles farm, then owned by his brother-in-law, James M. Williams. He bought a yoke of oxen and a horse blind in one eye. With these he began to clear up bottom land and make a living for three children, Minnie Duepree having been born shortly after moving to the lower part of the farm. Here he made his own bullets, candles and shoestrings, going by ox team to Jefferson for his annual supply of staple groceries. Feeling the burden of too much land, he decided to sell some, go to the prairie and build a house of two rooms and a "lean-to" one mile north of Dial. A bored well furnished all the water for stock and family, which was so hard no soap would break it. Here Samuel Newton Thompson was born. When the children grew older, Mr. Thompson desired better school advantages than could be obtained at Lane's Academy, now the modern and well equipped standard school superintended by Cooper Carter, who married J. Q. Thompson's granddaughter, Ruth Thompson, so he sold the farm at a sacrifice and moved to Honey Grove in 1880, having bought the place on East Main and 14th streets built by Logan Davidson just before the Civil War, but then owned by Sidney Price. He began trying to make a living for a family of five in the general merchandise store of J. B. McKee at a salary of forty dollars a month, rising at 4 a.m. to let the Indians, who had spent the previous night in the wagon yard, have their goods before returning to what was then the Indian Territory. The task of making a decent living on this meager salary was a difficult one, as one more child, Harry L. Thompson, was to be provided for. This necessitated the opening of a private school by Mrs. Thompson (more of which will be said later).

Mr. Thompson, though never strong, lived to the age of nearly 87, having been a loyal member and clerk of the Honey Grove Baptist church about 35 years. He now sleeps in beautiful Oakwood, waiting a glorious resurrection.

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