Tucker County, West Virginia Biography of GEORGE. B. THOMPSON This file was submitted by Valerie Crook, E-mail address: **The Submitter does not have a connection to the subject of this sketch.** This file may be freely copied by individuals and non-profit organizations for their private use. All other rights reserved. Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other means requires the written approval of the file's author. This file is part of the WVGenWeb Archives. If you arrived here inside a frame or from a link from somewhere else, our front door is at http://www.usgwarchives.net/wv/wvfiles.htm The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 483 Tucker GEORGE. B. THOMPSON. Postmaster of Davis, Tucker County, George B. Thompson only recently took up the duties of this office, and for nearly thirty years previously had been a leading figure in the lumber industry of which Davis was the center. Mr. Thompson came to this region in 1893. He was born in Coos County, New Hampshire, at Berlin, August 1, 1870. He represents an old New England Colonial fam- ily. This branch of the Thompsons came from England in 1684, settling at Halifax, Massachusetts. The later descendants moved to Maine. Samuel S. Thompson, of the main branch of the family, served as a soldier in the Revo- lutionary war. He left Maine after the war and moved to New Hampshire, finishing his life at Berlin. He was the great-grandfather of the Davis postmaster. The grand- father was Benjamin Thompson, lumberman and farmer, who spent his life in the vicinity of Berlin. He married Sarah Wheeler, of English ancestry, and they had a family of seven sons and one daughter, the only one now living being John Thompson, at Long Beach, California. Hiram W. Thompson, father of George B., was born at Berlin, New Hampshire, and died at the early age of twenty-six. He married Aramantha Howard, daughter of George Howard. Two children were born to their union, Mary, wife of A. N. Wetherbee, of Lyndon, Vermont, and George B. The mother of these children subsequently became the wife of R. W. Wetherbee and is now living at Lyndon, Vermont. George B. Thompson remained in his native town in New Hampshire until he was thirteen, when he accom- panied his widowed mother to Lyndonville, Vermont. He attended the Lyndon Institute, a college preparatory school, and subsequently completed a course in stenography in a commercial school at Boston. Soon after came the opportunity to identify himself with the lumber industry of Tucker County, West Virginia. This opportunity grew out of the fact that he was the nephew of A. Thompson, one of the pioneers in the timber business of this section. A. Thompson was founder of the Blackwater Lumber Company in 1888, and was the builder of the first large mill on the West Virginia Central and Pittsburg Railways for the manufacture of spruce and hem- lock lumber. This mill at Davis was conducted by Mr. Thompson under the name of the Blackwater Lumber Com- pany for twenty years. In February, 1907, all the inter- ests of the company and those of A. Thompson in the tim- ber and lumber interests of this section were sold to the Babcock Lumber Company. George B. Thompson had joined his uncle's enterprise in 1893, beginning as tally man and time-keeper, and subsequently was promoted to secretary and treasurer. With the transfer of the inter- ests he was retained as general manager of the Babcock Company until 1918. For several years after leaving the lumber industry Mr. Thompson engaged in farming at Davis. Then, in Janu- ary, 1922, he was appointed postmaster, succeeding W. E. Patterson. His assistant in the office is Miss Eva Wilhelm, who has the unusual distinction of having been elected a city recorder. Mr. Thompson has always been more or less interested in polities, and the only break in his allegiance as a republican came in 1912, when he followed Colonel . Roosevelt's leadership in the progressive party. He was appointed postmaster at Davis by President Harding. He has been a member of the Common Council and the School Board, and in 1914 was elected to the House of Delegates. During the session of 1915 he served under Speaker John- son, and was a member of the committees on taxation and finance, mines and mining, roads, redistricting of the state, forestry and fish and game. Due to his long practical con- nection with the lumber industry he had a technical and general interest in forestry legislation, and the forestry service of the preservation of the timber resources of the state have become a sort of hobby with him. He secured the passage of a bill making the game and fish commis- sioner ex-officio forestry commissioner to look after and prevent the destruction of forests by fire. As a member of the Finance Committee of the House he was in a posi- tion to aid the educational matters of the state through generous appropriations for their maintenance. When Mr. Thompson first came to Davis he found a vil- lage in a wilderness of woods, a lumber camp with mills and great business activity, though the town had no streets, water system, sewers and few other improvements to make it a desirable place in which to live. In the thirty years he has lived here he has seen a billion feet of lumber shipped from this point, and has witnessed the destruc- tion of more than a hundred thousand acres of timber nearby. In May, 1901, at Cumberland, Maryland, Mr. Thompson married Miss Elsie J. Pryor, daughter of Henry L. Pryor, of Perry County, Pennsylvania. Her father was a Union soldier in the Civil war and five of his descendants were represented in the World war. Mrs. Thompson was born at Blaine, Pennsylvania, and is one of a family of seven daughters and four sons, all still living. The five children of Mr. and Mrs. Thompson are Avilda, Benjamin F., Albert J., Ruth E. and Paul E. The three youngest are students in the Davis schools. Benjamin is attending West Virginia University, and Avilda is assistant to her father in the Davis Post Office.