Surnames: Thompson, Lewis, Cooper, Wilson, Crawford, Dawson
Samuel Thompson is an extensive land holder, a large coal operator along the Monongahela river in the Pittsburgh bed of the great Appalachian coal field. He is a son of John Thompson and Ruth Lewis Thompson, and was born in East Bethlehem township, Washington county, Penna, March 28, 1820.John Thompson was born in New Jersey in 1776. He removed early in life to Washington county and located on a farm in East Bethlehem township. He was a farmer and trader and owned four hundred acres of land. He was a member of the Methodist Episcopal church and died March 31, 1860, in his eighty fourth year. His wife was a native of Pennsylvania and died September 17, 1876, in her ninety third year.
Samuel Thompson was reared on a farm and received a limited education in the old subscription schools. He engaged in farming and purchased a farm in 1850 and in the same year he engaged in the distilling business. He began with a small distillery of eight bushels capacity, enlarge it into an extensive building and continued for twenty years in the farming and distilling business.
In 1857 Mr Thompson removed to his present residence in Bridgeport and in 1879 engaged in the coal business. He now owns the Champion, Caledonian and Wood's Run Coal Works that have a combined output of ten thousand bushels of coal per day. These three works are situated close
together in Washington county and produce a desirable article of coal which is in great demand in the Western and Southern markets.He owns seventeen farms, aggregating three thousand acres of good farming land. Seven of these farms are in Washington county, five in Fayette, two in Iowa and three in Kansas and are all underlaid with coal.
Mr Thompson was united in marriage in 1843 to Miss Martha Cooper, who died in 1848.
July 12, 1859, he married Miss Esther Wilson of Washington county who died Mary 30, 1864, leaving three children: Robert W Thompson, now in Kansas; George D Thompson, managing a farm of four hundred acres in Washington county; and Thomas H Thompson, in charge of a Washington
county farm of five hundred acres.February 25, 1872, Mr Thompson married for his third wife, Miss Elizabeth Crawford of Fayette county. She died June 20, 1877.
In 1882 Mr Thompson married his fourth wife, Mrs Bridget Dawson, widow of Elias Dawson.
Samuel Thompson has been a director of the First National Bank of Brownsville for fifteen years, and also a director of the National Deposit Bank of Brownsville since its organization. He owns stock in the Citizens' Bank of Washington, Penna, and is a stockholder of the Bridgeport Natural Gas Company, and he and his nephew have a bank in Eureka, Kansas.
Being one of nine children, he received but a small sum from his father's estate. By energy, care, good management, and close attention to business he has won a competency. He is a prominent businessman of Fayette county, and his large business enterprises are conducted energetically and systematically.