J. N. Thompson. For fully a quarter of a century, members of the Thompson family have been exceptionally active in all the business and civic affairs of Eastern Oklahoma, both in Tulsa and Okmulgee County. J. N. Thompson is one of the vigorous young business men of Beggs, where in association with his brothers he handles some extensive stock and oil interests and is also a real estate dealer.

A wide circle of people in old Indian Territory have a respectful and admiring memory of the late Joseph Thompson, father of the young business man of Beggs. Joseph Thompson was born near Logansport, Indiana, and married there Mary Calkin, a native of the same locality. At sixteen years of age he ran away from home in order to enlist in the army and served with the Union forces in an Indiana regiment. After his marriage he moved to Missouri, afterwards to Western Kansas, then returned for a time to Missouri, and in 1891 located in the vicinity of the present City of Tulsa. He died at the Tulsa Hospital in May, 1912, at the age of sixty-seven. His widow now lives at Beggs. Joseph Thompson was a pioneer by nature. It seemed that he was never content to abide long in a well settled community, and his ambition was to be in the center of the progressive life and affairs of a new country. He was well equipped for pioneer duties and hardships, and was a splendid physical specimen, standing six feet four inches in height and weighing 240 pounds. His main business was farming and stock raising, but he was often called upon for public work, and served several years as sheriff of Lawrence County, Missouri, and was a deputy United States marshal from the time he came to Indian Territory until his death. He was an active republican, and a member of the Grand Army of the Republic. He and his wife became the parents of eleven children: C. E. Thompson, who was accidentally killed; U. S., a rancher at Beggs; S. V., a stockman in Tulsa County; W. M., a stockman at Beggs and president of the Farmers National Bank there; Lillie, wife of LeRoy Ward of Oilton; Leva, wife of Lon Lewis of Broken Arrow; W. H. of Big Heart; J. N.; R. B., a stockman at Beggs; Floy, who died at the age of two years; and Mildred, who died when sixteen years old.

It was the late Joseph Thompson who established his young sons as farmers and stockmen in Okmulgee County. J. N. Thompson, who was born at the home of his parents at Mount Vernon, Missouri, June 28, 1882, grew up on his father’s farm and in Indian Territory from the age of nine, and was on the home ranch in the Creek Nation until he was seventeen years old. He attended Kendall College two years, spent five years as an employee in the post officc at Mounds, and then completed a course in Bryant & Stratton’s Commercial College at St. Louis and was employed in that city for a few months before returning to Oklahoma. Since then he has looked after his interests as a partner of Thompson Brothers, stockmen, and also has a real estate office and some investments in the oil district of Oklahoma.

In politics he is a republican, is a Scottish Rite Consistory Mason and a member of the Elks Lodge at Okmulgee. In 1905 he married Miss Wilma Red of Mounds, Oklahoma. They have two daughters: Mildred and Doris, the former aged six and the latter two years.