San Luis Obispo County Biographies

JOHN THOMPSON

Submitted by Peggy Hooper

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm


JOHN THOMPSON is one of the prominent early settlers of San Luis Obispo County. 
In 1867 he located in Monterey County, and after three years spent there he 
came to his present locality in San Luis Obispo County. He is a native of north 
England, born in February, 1842, of English parents, John and Esther Thompson, 
and was reared and educated there. When he came to San Luis Obispo County it 
was a grand sheep country, with but few settlers, principally stock-raisers. At first 
he took sheep to raise on shares, and coon worked up a line business, becoming 
a breeder of stock. This he continued successfully until 1884, when the county 
began to be settled more thickly, and he closed out the business. When he came 
to the county there was only one American at the mission, Lewis Colgate, and 
only a few Spaniards were there. The following year Mr. Walter M. Jeffreys landed 
there, and they became warm friends, the intimacy lasting until 1890, when Mr. 
Jeffreys' death occurred. Mr. Thompson was with him in his last illness and at his 
death-bed. He is administrator of his friend's estate, and the manager of the 
Jeffreys Hotel, the pioneer hotel of the place. Mr. Thompson has large land interests 
of his own, having 800 acres, located three miles east of San Miguel, where he is 
carrying on farming and raising horses and cattle. He is also interested, with two 
of his sisters who reside in England, in 1 ,600 acres of land in Kern County. They 
have stock on this ranch, and they also have property in the city of San Luis Obispo. 

Mr. Thompson was married in 1863, in England, to Miss Craiton, an English lady. 
Two of their children, Walter and William, were born in England, and in infancy came 
with their parents to California. Esther A. was born in San Luis Obispo, and is the wife 
of Mr. Higgin McFadden. After seventeen years of wedded life Mr. Thompson had the 
misfortune to lose his wife by death, and since that time, 1880, he has remained single. 

As a hotel manager Mr. Thompson is courteous and obliging. He is a member of the 
Masonic fraternity. He prefers the Democracy, but is independent in local politics, 
and is well informed in the affairs of his country. He is a hospitable gentleman, of 
pleasing address and kind impulses. 

History of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura Counties, California  - by 
C.M. Gidney, Benjamin Brooks, Edwin M. Sheridan, Vol I, II.  -Lewis Publ. Co., 
Chicago, 1917.