This is the first of a series of blog posts, researched and written by our volunteers, about the people buried in the cemetery. We wanted to make sure they were not forgotten.
When entering the back gate of the Vergennes Burying Ground, some of the first headstones you may notice laying on the ground are those of Major John Thompson, his wife Susan, and his daughter, Clara Warren. The stones are partially broken and when we cleaned them, we discovered they were cemented together at some point in the past, we assume to prevent further damage.
John Thompson was born in Stratford, Connecticut, probably in April of 1783. Connecticut church record abstracts show that he was baptized on July 20, 1783.
Little is known about his military history at this point, other than the fact that he held a captain’s position and commanded a company of Green Mountain Boys at the Battle of Plattsburgh.
Susan Mathers married Major John Thompson on March 26, 1812, at St. Paul’s Church in Vergennes. Susan was twenty years old when she married John and they had two children, Clarissa (Clara) (1815-1853) and Henry (1820-1872). Susan died on December 20, 1821 at the age of twenty-nine. Clara was six and Henry was one when their mother died.
Vergennes census records show that in 1850, Clareasa (sic) Warren and Henry Thompson lived with their father, John, as did Clara’s children, John and Francis (Clara) Warren. The older Clara died on July 4, 1853 of consumption.
The Vergennes census of 1860 lists John, who outlived his wife and daughter, residing with family that included his son Henry, Henry’s wife Harriet (1835-1861) and their son Fred (1859-1904), plus John’s granddaughter, Clara Warren (1839-1910). Henry died at the age of fifty-two on March 5, 1872. He is buried at the Prospect Cemetery just south of Vergennes, as is John’s granddaughter, with the inscription identifying her as Frances Warren Converse.
John has a place in written Vergennes, Vermont history, according to a transcript from History of Addison County, Vermont, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of Some of its Prominent Men and Pioneers (H.P Smith, 1886). He ran a wool carding and cloth-dressing shop out of his house. The Thompson House was described as a “house and forty acres on the large island on the side of the grist mill.” An advertisement in The Enterprise and Vermonter, dated June 17, 1830, documents the acceptance of wool for manufacture, signed by John Thompson. Wool sheared from sheep would have been brought to him for processing: scouring and fulling (cleaning) and carding (combing to straighten the fibers) so it could be spun into yarn, felted, or woven into cloth. Cloth-dressing refers to the cutting of the surface of the woolen fabric, done by hand with heavy shears. The carding business was acquired by Edward Jewett in 1838. Mr. Jewett was murdered in California in February of 1853.
John held various city council positions and was mayor of Vergennes from 1846-1847. He is listed as a farmer on the 1850 Vergennes census. A passage in Smith’s History of Addison County, Vermont describes him as “a man of strong peculiarities and much native shrewdness, firm in his attachments and in his prejudices” (p. 688).
Major John Thompson died in Vergennes on December 8, 1867, at the age of eighty-four years and eight months.
Written by Gretchen Beloin
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