Thompson, George Franklin.

Military officer, politician.

George Franklin Thompson was born on August 9, 1827, in Medway, Massachusetts. As a young man he worked in a shoe factory, but with the outbreak of the Civil War, he was mustered into the 21st Massachusetts Volunteers as a 1st lieutenant. At the end of the war, breveted lieutenant colonel, he was appointed as Inspector for the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, the federal agency that oversaw Reconstruction in a post-slavery South.

He arrived in Tallahassee on December 2, 1865 to report on conditions in Florida's District 5, encompassing Volusia, Orange, Polk, Hillsboro, Manatee, Monroe, Dade and Broward counties. There he met William Henry Gleason, an attorney and engineer. Gleason, eager to see Florida, accompanied Thompson in this study. By 1866, Thompson had finished his tour, left the service, and returned to Massachusetts.

There, in 1873, he became a member of the state senate and later served on the school board for Worcester. Franklin died on November 13, 1895, leaving his wife Caroline and their six children.