Thomas Thompson

Hosmer (pp. 46-47): “He settled upon the land adjoining that of Mr. Closson on the southeast. He removed here from Massachusetts not far from the year 1765. He was a man of a great deal of energy and in his time was one of the most prominent and enterprising citizens of the town and was one of its selectmen. He was of small stature, but he possessed a great share of courage, being perfectly fearless, was very active in what he undertook, and what he lacked in size he made up in what is generally termed ‘pluck.’ He was the owner of a considerable amount of land, about three hundred acres, as appears by the plan of Peters’s survey …” Hosmer lists “Thomas Thompson, 1765” among the settlers (p. 25); since he married at Roxbury on 28 Oct 1765, he came with his wife late in 1765 or after.

The settlers chose “Messrs. Joseph Tyler and Thomas Thompson” as a committee to go to the General Court at Boston to buy the island land left after the settlers’ lots; “they being unable to attend,” George Tyler and Levi Carman were sent instead (Hosmer, p. 36). The General Court’s resolve of 22 Mar 1786 (Mass. Archives 46:488) granted each settler on Deer Island 100 acres and the rest of the island to Joseph Tyler and others, “Thomas Thompson” among them, “on condition, that they appropriate three hundred acres of land for the use of the ministry, and three hundred acres for the use of a grammar school” (“Deer Island Papers,” Bangor Historical Magazine 1:195-196).

From Hosmer’s abstracts of the town records: church elder, chosen 8 Jan 1793 (p. 277); selectman 1795 and 1796 (pp. 223-224). In 1795 the town raised £100 toward a meeting house, and he was one of the three men chosen “to expend the said sum in providing suitable timber and other materials for building” (pp. 223, 280). Thompson’s Cove “derived its name from Mr. Thomas Thompson, who was the owner of the lands adjoining, and lived near it” (p. 289).

The Deer Isle families typescript adds a Roxbury baptism of a son Thomas, 11 Jan 1767 (First Religious Society); the 1790 census household (3 sons under 16 and 5 females); and the tax lists, “taxed for a poll in 1817 and for R. and P. only after that to 1826.” In 1803 his land bounded his son-in-law Nathan Low’s on Eggemoggin Reach, and in 1809 the Deer Isle merchants Towne and Spofford sued “Thomas Thompson, yeoman,” on two notes, at the same term as Nathan.

Children (Hosmer pp. 46-47; Mollie copies him): sons Adam, Capt. John, master mariner, who “died in Philadelphia,” and Thomas, who “died when a young man”; and daughters who married Major Nathan Low; Joseph Sellers (when he was 48, about 1800); “a Mr. Hazen, who lived in Bridgton”; Nathaniel Kennison of Sedgwick; “Colonel Edward Barnes, of Boston”; and John Howard Jr., as his first wife (their son was Capt. Thomas Howard). Two Roxbury marriages may be daughters of his: “Martha [Tompson. int.], and Enoch Hazen of Rowley, Feb. 9, 1791” and “Jane, and William Barnes [Barns. int.], Nov. 29, 1793” (Roxbury VR 2:394), though Hosmer names the Barnes husband Edward. The typescript gives the children’s Deer Isle birth dates (each has a page): Jane 1768, Mary 1770 (published to Joseph Sellers 1799), Rebecca 1772, Martha 1774, Adam 1776, Elizabeth 1781 (published to Nathaniel Kennison 1800), Thomas 1784, Abigail May 1786 (married John Howard Jr. 1805) and John 1789.

Open questions

• His parents and origin: Roxbury and Boston records around 1765. No Thomas Thompson birth about 1744 is in the printed Boston births. Roxbury’s Samuel Thompson, who married Jane Steward on 30 June 1747, is too late to be his father unless he was younger than his stated age.
• His and Mary’s gravestones, his Hancock County deeds and probate, and the year of his death (“26 March,” year torn).