John C. Thompson was born in Winchester, Virginia, July 27, 1837. His father, Samuel Thompson, was a soldier in the Mexican war. He enlisted in battery 6, 4th artillery, at Baltimore, December, 1846, and fell at the battle of La Puebla, in August, 1847. The subject of this sketch lived in Winchester till the death of his mother, which occurred when he was about six years old. Subsequent to that event he lived with his grandparents, Thomas and Margaret Jackson, in Washington, D. C., where he was a student at Abbott’s College. At the age of seventeen, he came to Saline county, Missouri, and lived with his uncle, John C. Thompson, Sr., at Saline City. Shortly after coming to Missouri, he made a profession of religion, was very soon licensed to preach the gospel, and became a member of the St. Louis annual conference of the M. E. Church. He traveled different circuits in central and southwest Missouri, and, in 1860, was stationed at Christy Chapel, in St. Louis. After remaining pastor of that charge throughout the year 1860, he asked a location and moved to California, Missouri, when he became temporarily connected with the Missouri Pacific railway. In 1862, Mr. Thompson was admitted to the bar in Moniteau county, and practiced law in California, until he refusal to take the “iron-clad” oath, under the Drake constitution, when he abandoned the profession and re-entered the employ of the railway company above mentioned, and continued in connection therewith till the spring of 1869. He then moved to Arrow Rock, in Saline county, where he has ever since resided. He is local elder in the M. E. Church, South, at that place, and is esteemed an unpretending Christian gentleman. December 12, 1858, he was married to Miss Susan I. Adams, a daughter of Judge J. D. Adams, of California, Missouri. They have four children living and one deceased, as follows: Mary E. B., Joseph Lee (deceased), Charles T., Maggie M. and John C., Jr.
