G. Cumberland Thompson

G. Cumberland Thompson was born about 1831 in Louisiana. The Grimes County census of June 8, 1880, lists the household at Prairie Plains Precinct as: Cumberland Thompson, age 49, farmer, born Louisiana (father born Virginia, mother born Mississippi); Arena Thompson, wife, age 49, born Mississippi (father born Louisiana, mother born Mississippi); Cumberland, age 18, son, single, works on farm, born Texas (father born Louisiana, mother born Mississippi); Thomas J., age 14, son; Charles, age 12, son; and James N., age 10, son.²

Arena Thompson, Cumberland’s first wife, was possibly Indian or part Indian — “according to family legend she was Indian, or part Indian (though the census recorded her as ‘white’).” The name Arena was pronounced “Ahreen.” She died prior to 1890.²

Cumberland’s only daughter, Jennie, married Mack (M. C.) Thomas. Cumberland filed for 160 acres of land at Mustang Prairie, Grimes County, under the pre-emption law in 1870. He later married his second wife, Mildred T. At the time of his death he owned two tracts of land in the G. C. Thompson Survey and the J. Lindley Survey in Grimes County.²

Family

Their son Thomas Jefferson Thompson, born about 1865, married Margaret Annaliza McAdams (“Tommie”), daughter of John McAdams Jr. and Mary Frances Bankhead. Thomas Jefferson died around 1899, leaving Tommie with five small children, including the identical twins Ethel Arrine and Edna Alline.¹

Through his granddaughter Ethel Arrine, who married James Walter Morris Sr. in 1906, Cumberland Thompson’s descendants are connected to both the Morris and Ledbetter family lines.

Death

G. Cumberland Thompson died in April 1927, having lived approximately ninety-six years — a remarkably long life for the era. He outlived his son Thomas Jefferson by nearly three decades.