Mesa County CO Archives Biographies.....Thompson, M.C.  1875 - ?
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Judy Crook jlcrook@rof.net March 19, 2006, 2:38 pm

Author: Progressive Men of Western Colorado

     M.C. Thompson, of Parker basin, Plateau valley, in Mesa county, Colorado,

was born in Butler county, Pennsylvania, in 1875, and is the son of James and

Rosa (Covert) Thompson, both natives of that state, where they were reared,

educated and married.  They were farmers by occupation and prosperous in their

work until the beginning of the Civil war, when the father, thoroughly patriotic

and devoted to the Union, enlisted in Company C, Eleventh Pennsylvania Infantry,

and on June 27, 1862, laid his life on the altar of his country at the battle of

Gaines Mills, Virginia. The bereaved and stricken mother took up the burden of

rearing her family as best she could and with patience, perseverance, great

devotion to duty and lofty faith, bore it to a successful conclusion, living to

see her offspring well settled in life and putting into daily practice the

lessons of fidelity and industry she had labored so sedulously to teach them.

She died in December, 1902, aged seventy-eight years.  Their offspring numbered

ten, M.C. being the sixth.  His opportunities for attending school were

necessarily limited, as at the age of fourteen he was obliged to begin to earn

his own livelihood, which he did by working on farms near his home until 1878. 

He was then twenty-one, and determined to seek in the West larger opportunities

than his home county afforded, especially to one in his circumstances, and moved

to Illinois, locating at Kewanee, where he farmed for two years.  From there he

moved on to Nebraska in 1880, and after five years of farming in one part of

that state with varying success, he settled in Custer county, in the central

part, where he remained until 1894, engaged in the same pursuit.  In that year

he came to Colorado and took up his present ranch in Parker Basin, on which he

has since resided and been industriously occupied in an expanding farming

industry with gratifying results and increasing prosperity, succeeding in his

enterprise and building himself up in the esteem and good will of the people,

and exhibiting among them an elevated and serviceable citizenship.  In 1888 he

was married to Miss Cora M. Kitchen, the daughter of John and Eliza (Emerson)

Kitchen. They have had seven children, six of whom are living, Elmer B., Anna

M., Edwin N., Allen P., Beulah S. and Roy E.  A daughter named Ethel died when

she was two months and four days old.  Mr. and Mrs. Thompson are ornaments to

the social life of their community, and he is one of the enterprising and

representative men of the section in all matters of public importance.  

Additional Comments:
From Progressive Men of Western Colorado.  Chicago:  A.W. Bowen & Co., 1905

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