Thompson, Edward Herbert, 1860-1935

Edward Herbert Thompson was born in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1860, and his family lineage in New England can be traced to colonial times. His paternal grandmother was a favorite niece of General Israel Putnam (or 'Old Put',) who fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill. As a small boy, Thompson's mother, a student of the artist Gladwin, planted the archaeological seed when they would search for arrowheads at the bottom of brooks near their summer home in Athol. At his uncle's farm, he and a friend would find North American artifacts and deposit them at the Worcester County Natural Historic Society.

Following public school, Thompson enrolled in the business college at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in the class of 1879. On February 6, 1883, he married Miss Henrietta T. Hamblin of West Falmouth , Massachusetts. Miss Hamblin was a school teacher and the daughter of a retired whaling captain. It was around this time that Thompson built a log cabin in West Falmouth on the grounds of his vacation home, where he could study and write

...