Thompson, Philo H.

Born: 1810-12-17 Barre, Massachusetts

Died: 1853-06-27 Rock Island, Illinois

Flourished: Pekin, Illinois

Thompson was a shopkeeper, newspaper editor, and Whig Party member from Pekin, Illinois. Thompson moved to Illinois sometime between 1832 and 1835. He settled in Tazewell County. In 1835, he married Stella W. Richmond, with whom he raised three children. In May 1843, he represented Tazewell County at a district Whig convention held in Pekin, also attended by Abraham Lincoln. In 1844, he was a member of the Tazewell County Whig Party Central Committee. In 1850, he was living in Pekin and working as a merchant and owned real estate valued at $2,000. He later moved his family to Chicago. He died on a business trip to Rock Island.

Illinois Statewide Marriage Index, Tazewell County, 11 November 1835, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; Proceedings of Whig Convention at Pekin, Illinois regarding Candidates for Congress; Joseph E. Suppiger, "The Intimate Lincoln Part VII: Congressman and Family-man," Lincoln Herald 84 No. 3 (Fall 1982), 161; Sangamo Journal (Springfield, IL), 22 February 1844, 2:1; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Pekin, Tazewell County, IL, 109; Emma Forbes Ware, Ware Genealogy; Robert Ware, of Dedham, Massachusetts, 1642-1699 (Boston: Charles H. Pope, 1901), 139; Blackhawk Genealogical Society Quarterly 1 No. 3 (September 1974), 71.