Thomas A. Thompson Biography


	This biography is from "Memorial and biographical record; an illustrated
 	compendium of biography, containing a compendium of local biography,
	including biographical sketches of prominent old settlers and 
	representative citizens of South Dakota..." Published by G. A. Ogle & 
	Co., Chicago, 1899. Page 618

	Scan, OCR and editing by Maurice Krueger,mkrueger@iw.net, 1998. 

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THOMAS A. THOMPSON, a representative farmer of Carlyle township, Beadle 
county, South Dakota, is finely located on section 35, where he is 
maintaining his place among the progressive and intelligent men around 
him, engaged in farming and keeping a choice assortment of graded 
stock. He was born in Henry county, Kentucky, February 13, 1860, and is 
the youngest in a family of ten children, whose parents were James M. 
and Rebecca (Shields) Thompson. When our subject was a child of five 
years, the father, who was a distiller by trade, moved his family to 
Vermilion county, Illinois, and for two years ran a distillery near 
Danville, but afterward moved his plant near Hoopeston, the same 
county. He also bought land and his children were reared upon the farm. 

Under the parental roof Thomas A. Thompson remained until attaining his 
majority, and on leaving home in the spring of 1883, came to Beadle 
county, South Dakota, where he took up land on the southwest quarter of 
section 35, Carlyle township,as a homestead. In the spring of 1898, he 
bought the southwest quarter of section 34, the same township, and to 
the cultivation and improvement of both tracts he now gives his time 
and attention. 

About ten days before starting for this state, Mr. Thompson was 
married, February 15, 1883, to Miss Louisa Smily, a daughter of James 
and Tabitha (Little) Smily. She was born in Butler county, Indiana, May 
12, 1865, but at the time of her marriage was living in Illinois. Two 
children bless this union: Harley, born December 25, 1883; and 
Gertrude, born November 25, 1886. 

Mr. and Mrs. Thompson came to Dakota with about three hundred dollars 
in money and one team, with which to begin life, but by their combined 
efforts, they have met with excellent success, and besides having two 
good quarter-sections of land, they have a neat and substantial 
residence. and other farm buildings, all the machinery necessary upon a 
modern farm, twelve horses and forty-five head of cattle. Mr. Thompson 
milks from fifteen to twenty cows for the Alpena creamery, and as a 
general farmer has been very successful. Politically he is now 
identified with the Populist party, but was formerly a Democrat. He is 
chairman of the township board of supervisors of Carlyle township, and 
has filled that office about half the time since the township was 
organized, in a most creditable and acceptable manner. He attends the 
Methodist Episcopal church in Alpena, of which his wife and daughter 
are members, and the family is one of prominence in the social circles 
of the community in which they live.