THOMPSON, DAVID *

Other Events and Attributes:

• Differentiator: The Great Migration; Immigrant
• Residence: York, Maine, USA
• Departure: 1623
• Historical Importance: 1623, New Hampshire, USA; First NH settler
• Residence: 1626, Boston, Middlesex, Massachusetts, USA

Notes:

English Explorer. David Thomson (sometimes spelled Thompson) was the first non-Native American settler of, and founder of, the State of New Hampshire. He also founded the city of Piscataqua, New Hampshire. David was apprenticed as a seaman as a youth, and made frequent trips to America. His first journey to America was in 1607, well before the pilgrims voyaged to the new land in 1620. He made another trip to New England in 1616. Thomson and others built a shelter in Biddleford Pool, Maine, to prove to Sir Fernando Gorges, a powerful British nobleman, that it was possible to survive through the winter in New England. Upon arrival, the ship was attacked by Native Americans until Thomson interceded. In his prior trips to America, he gained favor with the natives, including a native named Squanto. Thomson established a fishing trade, and when Miles Standish of Plymouth asked for Thomson's assistance to feed the starving Pilgrims, Thomson provided enough salted cod to keep the Pilgrims alive in 1623. Thomson's appearance in Plymouth that year was the source of the second Thanksgiving Day at Plymouth. Thomson moved south from New Hampshire to Boston, Massachusetts. An island was named after David, and today, Thompson's Island remains one of the last undeveloped parts of the city of Boston. David Thomson disappeared in 1628, never to be seen or heard from again. It is suspected that he drowned in Boston Harbor. A book titled "First Yankee" was written about the life of David Thomson

From: https://www.nh.gov/almanac/history.htm?fbclid=IwAR06qmB-n-Kp0zI71dAXbQn0LdTfj0Oaj2ee3X35oO0k1rz_xzyHw-dzCLc

Early historians record that in 1623, under the authority of an English land-grant, Captain John Mason, in conjunction with several others, sent David Thomson, a Scotsman, and Edward and Thomas Hilton, fish-merchants of London, with a number of other people in two divisions to establish a fishing colony in what is now New Hampshire, at the mouth of the Piscataqua River.

One of these divisions, under Thomson, settled near the river’s mouth at a place they called Little Harbor or "Pannaway," now the town of Rye, where they erected salt-drying fish racks and a "factory" or stone house. The other division under the Hilton brothers set up their fishing stages on a neck of land eight miles above, which they called Northam, afterwards named Dover.

Nine years before that Captain John Smith of England and later of Virginia, sailing along the New England coast and inspired by the charm of our summer shores and the solitude of our countrysides, wrote back to his countrymen that:

"Here should be no landlords to rack us with high rents, or extorted fines to consume us. Here every man may be a master of his own labor and land in a short time. The sea there is the strangest pond I ever saw. What sport doth yield a more pleasant content and less hurt or charge than angling with a hook, and crossing the sweet air from isle to isle over the silent streams of a calm sea?"

Thus the settlement of New Hampshire did not happen because those who came here were persecuted out of England. The occasion, which is one of the great events in the annals of the English people, was one planned with much care and earnestness by the English crown and the English parliament. Here James the first began a colonization project which not only provided ships and provisions, but free land bestowed with but one important condition, that it remain always subject to English sovereignty.

DAVID married COLE, AMIAS Amyes on 18 Jul 1613 in Plymouth, Devon, England. AMIAS (daughter of Living) was born in 3 Oct 1597 or 1592 in Plymouth, Devon, England; died on 3 Sep 1672 in Boston, Middlesex, Massachusetts, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. THOMPSON, Priscilla was born on 23 Oct 1616 in Kittery, York, Maine, USA; died in 1710.
2. THOMPSON, John was born on 19 Jan 1618 in Plymouth, Devon, England; died on 9 Nov 1685 in Mendon, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA.
3. THOMPSON, Miles was born in 1627 in South Berwick, York, Maine, USA; died on 30 Jun 1708 in Berwick, York, Maine, USA; was buried in South Berwick, York, Maine, USA.

Living + Living. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]