Caldwell County MO Archives History .....ASA THOMSON AND EARLY CABINET MAKER AND WELL DIGGER AND UNDERTAKER  
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Karen Walker khw4@yahoo.com September 8, 2008, 4:19 pm

ASA THOMSON AND EARLY CABINET MAKER AND WELL DIGGER AND UNDERTAKER OF HAMILTON
	Narrator:  Guy Thomson, 66, Hamilton

     Guy Thomson, salesman for the McMaster Hardware company, for many years, 
speaks about his father Asa Thomson, who with his wife came to Hamilton in the 
boom year of 1868.  They were drawn to Missouri by the ads of the railroad.  
They went to Kansas first but coming back, decided to try their luck here and 
stayed on.  Mr. Thomson bought a small plot of ground from the railroad in the 
west part of town and built a small house there.  They reared their family 
there, and the parents both died there.  The house burned down after it passed 
into other hands.
     When Mr. T. came, he tried to make a living out of his trade of cabinet 
maker (furniture maker), but there was little demand.  
     He also knew how to dig wells, and there was a big demand for wells in 
that year in Hamilton, when many new homes were being built.  He got a partner 
and they started out to bore wells with a very simple equipment.  They bought 
a hand bore with a board fastened to the top.  The two pushed at the ends of 
the board, driving it around, thus they bored wells.  One of Mr. T.'s wells 
was on the premises of the place commonly called the J.M. Hill place, then the 
site was occupied by a negro shack, home of Carr Taylor, a well known negro 
here in the 70s.  He made a good living out of boring wells for a few years 
till the boom of building new houses in Hamilton subsided.
     Most people here in Hamilton, however, remember Asa Thomson as a clerk 
for Hiram Tilley in the furniture store on west side of north Davis (main) 
street.  When Mr. Tilley opened up, he hired Mr. Thomson as cabinet maker, 
furniture repairer, and coffin maker.  He stayed with him till Mr. Tilley's 
death.  Those days in the late 70s, most people had coffins made right in 
town.  Guy can recall seeing people come into Hi Tilley's store with a stick 
which represented the length of the dead person.  By that stick, Mr. Thomson 
sawed boards, making them slant toward to narrow foot.  Soon Mr. Thomson 
worked into the undertaker's work, caring for the dead bodies by renewing the 
cloths placed over the face and hands, supervising the funeral etc.  After 
some private study, he also learned to embalm, although at that time, no 
license was required to do embalming.
     Mr. Thomson was a natural musician, led the choir at the M.E. church for 
years and used the tuning fork if necessary.  His children all inherited this 
love of music, and could put on a small orchestra at home.
     Three of the Thomson children are buried in the old cemetery west of town 
where the Thomson family had a lot.  Their graves are not marked, their names 
are Ralph, Leary and unnamed babe.  Mr. and Mrs. Thomson and Fred a son, lie 
in Highland cemetery at Hamilton.
     The other children were Guy who married 1) Jennie Gilliam, daughter of a 
former minister here, 2) Kate Christianson, Madge who married Otto Hare and 
she lives in California.  Bay Sparks, whose peculiar name arose from the fact 
that they could not agree on a name for her and called her Baby for years, 
finally she made herself a name from it Bay.
     During the 80s, the Thomsons kept a greenhouse in an annex to their home.
     Interview  1935.


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