Ancestors

John Thompson

John Thompson, who wrote and was written Tomson, was born about 1616. His gravestone says he died in the eightieth year of his age. Where he was born and who his parents were are not known. Randy A. West showed in The American Genealogist in 2020 that he was not the son of John Tompson and Alice Freeman.

On 26 December 1645 he married Mary Cooke at Plymouth. She was the youngest child of the Mayflower passenger Francis Cooke and his wife Hester. The court record reads "John Tompson & Mary Cooke marryed the xxvjth Decembr, 1645." Ten months later he came into court and admitted that they had slept together after their betrothal but before the wedding. He was fined and imprisoned according to the law, and released on paying his fees.

He rose in the colony's militia. In the 1670s the court called him "Serjeant Tompson". It appointed him, with the colony treasurer, to buy lands from the Indians for the new town of Middleborough. With Benjamin Church he bought a tract there by deed of 23 July 1673. He represented Middleborough at the colony's General Court in many sessions of the 1670s and 1680s and served as a selectman. In 1685 "Mr John Tompson & John Nelson" complained that John Howard would not leave the town. By the end of his life he was a lieutenant.

A boulder placed by the Halifax Historical Society marks the site of his home, in what is now the town of Halifax. Its plaque calls him the "first settler in Halifax" and says his "house burned by the Indians 1675", the first year of King Philip's War.

He made his will on 23 April 1696. It gives "unto my Daughter Mary Tabor thirty and five pounds besides w[ha]t is due to me from her husband". Mary had married Thomas Taber of Dartmouth in 1672. Thomas signed the heirs' agreement on the estate as "Thomas Tabor".

He died on 16 June 1696 and was buried on Nemasket Hill in Middleborough. His stone reads: "Memento Mori. In Memory of Lieut. John Tomson who Died June ye 16 1696 In the 80th Year of his Age. Death is a debt to nature due That I have paid and so must you." Mary lived until 21 March 1714 and was buried beside him.

In August 1894 his descendants began a monument over the grave, and the workmen digging its foundation uncovered his skeleton and his wife's.

If John Thompson is in your family, start your own tree.

Cite: Heirology, "John Thompson (1616-1696)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/john-thompson-1616-1696-799b4f.