Introduction

Biography

James was the son of James C. Thomp­son and Es­ther C. Farn­ham.

In 1850, he went to sea. In De­cem­ber 1852, he joined the of­fice of the State Sig­nal, a Whig pa­per pub­lished in Bel­fast. There he learned the print­ing bu­si­ness, which he fol­lowed for some years through se­ver­al New Eng­land states.

Before the out­break of the Am­er­ican ci­vil war, Thomp­son re­turned to Fair­field, Maine.

After the war be­gan, he en­list­ed in Com­pa­ny I, 17th Re­gi­ment, Maine Vol­un­teer In­fan­try, where he rose from se­cond lieu­ten­ant to cap­tain of Com­pa­ny K. He served in the Ar­my of the Po­to­mac, but in 1864 was dis­charged due to dis­a­bil­i­ty.

Though Thomp­son’s ser­vice re­cord in­di­cates he was a pas­tor up­on en­ter­ing the ar­my, he af­ter­ward stu­died at the Me­tho­dist Ge­ne­ral Bib­li­cal In­sti­tute in Con­cord, New Hamp­shire.

He was or­dained a dea­con in 1865, gra­du­at­ed in June 1866, and joined the Maine Con­fer­ence.

In 1867, he be­came an el­der. In 1870, af­ter serv­ing in a num­ber of posts, he moved to the Provi­dence [Rhode Is­land] Con­fer­ence (later re­named the New Eng­land Sou­thern Con­fer­ence) and re­tired in the spring of 1883.

He then moved to Key­ser, West Vir­gin­ia, where he pur­chased The Moun­tain Ec­ho news­pa­per, ed­it­ing it un­til Feb­ru­ary 1900.

In Oc­to­ber 1901, he was elect­ed Sec­re­ta­ry to the State Board of Ag­ri­cul­ture, and moved to Charles­ton, West Vir­gin­ia.

His fi­nal move was to St. Pe­ters­burg, Flo­ri­da, in 1905, where he was pas­tor of the First Ave­nue Me­tho­dist Church.