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BARBOUR COUNTY WEST VIRGINIA
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Submitted to the West Virginia Biographies Project by:
Valerie & Tommy Crook
vfcrook@earthlink.net
July 22, 2000
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The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc.,
Chicago and New York, Volume III,
pg. 566-567
Barbour
FREDERICK EARL THOMPSON, editor and publisher of The
Belington Progressive, has made this vital weekly paper
a potent force in furthering the interests of the City
of Belington and Barbour County, his father having the
active management of the business at the present time, and
Frederick E., while having active editorial management,
finding further claims upon his attention through his effec-
tive work as salesman in Barbour County for the Morris
Grocery Company, one of the leading wholesale concerns
of Clarksburg, which he has represented since 1917.
Mr. Thompson was born on a farm near Belington, on
the 15th of October, 1883, and in the schools of Barbour
County he acquired his early education. He attended sum-
mer normal schools, and at the age of sixteen years he
taught his first term of school, his pedagogic service hav-
ing continued two years. He finally fortified himself fur-
ther by taking a course in a business college, and he then
became stenographer in the office of Kane & Keyer, whole-
sale dealers in hardware. With this concern he won ad-
vancement to the position of sales manager, and in 1912
he made a wholesome swoop into the local newspaper realm
by purchasing the three weekly papers then published at
Belington-the Independent, The Central Repnblican and
The Observer, which he promptly merged into The Beling-
ton Progressive, of which he has continued the publisher
and which he has made a vigorous champion of the pro-
hibition and woman-suffrage causes. Prior to the passage
of the national laws eliminating the liquor traffic Mr.
Thompson had been actively allied with the prohibition
party and had been candidate on its ticket for various
local offices. In 1920, on the republican ticket, he was
elected to represent Barbour County in the House of Dele-
gates of the State Legislature. In the legislative sessions
of 1921 he was chairman of the committee on privileges
and elections, and also of that on enrolled bills, besides
having been a member of the printing and contingent ex-
penses committee. He took a stand for economy in the
management of state affairs, and fought for the reduc-
tion instead of the increase of salaries on the state pay
roll, besides opposing the creation of new offices which
would involve further drain upon the state treasury. He
was specially active in championing appropriations and
legislation in behalf of the construction of good roads, and
previously had made his newspaper the stanch advocate
of such improvements. He also advocated in the Legis-
lature liberal policies in connection with the public schools
of the state. He was a member of the City Council of
Belington when the municipal sewer system and street pav-
ing were under way, and he loyally supported these and
other progressive movements, including the bond issue for
the erection of a new high school building. He has served
as city recorder also, and one of the most loyal and pro-
gressive men of his home city. Mr. Thompson is a charter
member of the local organizations of the Woodmen of the
World and the Loyal Order of Moose, and he and his wife
are active members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The
plant of The Belington Progressive is modern in equipment
and facilities, with linotype machine, Babcock cylinder
press, two platen presses, and electric and gas-engine power
provisions. Its excellent job department was one of the
first in Barbour County to take a contract for the printing
of a book, and the work was performed in most creditable
manner. The Progressive is issued on Thursday of each
week, a model in letter press and in its presentation of
news of local and general order.
December 25, 1904, recorded the marriage of Mr. Thomp-
son and Miss Lenora Stalnaker, who was born and reared
in Barbour County, a daughter of Garrison and Mary M.
(Newlon) Stalnaker. Mr. and Mrs. Thompson have four
children: Wilfred A., Robert E., John A. and Mary Anna.
Francis L. Thompson, father of him whose name initiates
this review, was born in Barbour County, in December,
1859, and was a student in one of the first free schools
established in the county. He learned in his youth the
blacksmith trade under the direction of his father, John
B. Thompson, who was a Union soldier in the Civil war,
as a member of Company F, Fifteenth West Virginia
Volunteer Infantry. John B. Thompson was born in Bar-
bour County, where his father, David Thompson, and
mother, Polly (Wyatt) Thompson, settled at the time when
Gen. Andrew Jackson was President of the United States.
David Thompson here purchased an extensive tract of land,
for which he paid four cents an acre, and his old home was
six miles north of the present City of Belington. John B.
Thompson married Sarah Ann Jones. Both are dead.
John B. died in Taylor County. Their eldest son, Solomon
David, became a successful farmer near Moatsville, Bar-
bour County; Francis L. was the second son; Mrs. Mary
Ogden died at Clarksburg, this state; Excella is the wife
of M. D. Gainer, of Belington; Donna is the wife of Solo-
mon Skidmore, of Grafton, this state; Alphonso resides
at Belington; and General Ord was shot and killed by a
desperado while in discharge of his official duties as chief-
of-police at Gassaway, West Virginia.
Francis L. Thompson, now manager of The Belington
Progressive, married Anna Weaver, daughter of William
and Ellen (Skidmore) Weaver. The Skidmore family have
been one of prominence in this section of West Virginia
since the early pioneer days. Of the children of Mr. and
Mrs. Francis L. Thompson, Frederick Earl, immediate sub-
ject of this sketch, is the eldest; Mrs. Edna Richardson
resides in Los Angeles, California; Harry D. is engaged
in the candy jobbing business at Morgantown; Omer C.,
a commercial traveling salesman, resides at Belington; W.
Wayne, a printer by trade, is a resident of Los Angeles,
California; Miss Carol holds a position with the agricul-
tural department of the University of West Virginia;
Hugh A. is a linotype operator at Los Angeles, California;
Georgia is in the employ of the Belington Light & Water
Company; and Roma, Theodore and Sallie, who remain at
the parental home, are, in 1922, students in the public
schools of Belington.
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