Local figure
John W. Thompson (1844–1912) grew up on an Eno River farm near Cedar Grove and taught a neighborhood school in a log cabin there. He was superintendent of the Orange County schools from 1890 to 1895, then school supervisor under the county commissioners after the state closed the office, and superintendent again until 1901.
Source: DigitalNC: Irene Oliver Pender, A History of Orange County Schools, 1752-1983 (1983), pp. 108-109
Orange County Indexed has not yet linked an indexed work directly to John W. Thompson. The biography and the dated events on this page provide sources about John W. Thompson’s life and work.
Dated events connected with this person, in date order. See these 16 dated events in the chronology →
Later events: estates and burials, and the buildings, honors and histories that remember them.
Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first. The map shows the 1 with a known location.
Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors. Site locations from the N.C. State Historic Preservation Office survey, Open Orange, Orange County GIS, OpenStreetMap and a few other published sources named on each site’s page; town and community pins show approximate locations.
People named in the same dated entries as John W. Thompson, those sharing the most entries first. Each line links one of the shared entries in the chronology, where its source is cited. A shared entry shows these people in the same event, not how well they knew each other.
Background reading on Cedar Grove and rural northern Orange. These works cover the broader subject and may not discuss John W. Thompson. Follow a link to find a copy or view the material.
Community cookbook from the Ridge Garden charge, the pairing of Clover Garden United Methodist Church in Chapel Hill and Chestnut Ridge United Methodist Church in Efland, published by Clover Garden in 2025. Topics include both congregations' histories as well as cooking in Chapel Hill and Efland. Seven preliminary pages and 130 pages.
Two-page profile of farming and local food in Orange County from NC Cooperative Extension, 2017, drawing on the 2012 and 2017 USDA agricultural census figures. It came out of NC State Extension's Local Foods Program and FarmLink.
NC Digital Collections record courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
Photobook from a June 2017 workshop at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University in which thirteen participants, from teenagers to retirees, photographed farms in Orange and Alamance counties. Each farm gets a section by one or two of them: Braeburn Farm at Snow Camp, Cane Creek Farm at Saxapahaw, Dawnbreaker Farms at Hurdle Mills, Maple View Farm at Hillsborough, McAdams Farm and others, in color photographs and portraits of the farmers. Published in Durham in 2017, 89 unnumbered pages.
A community cookbook from Efland United Methodist Church in Efland, in western Orange County, published by the church in 2007, that also carries a history of the congregation alongside its recipes. 116 numbered pages with six unnumbered pages at either end, an illustration and a color portrait.
A community diagnosis of Efland, the unincorporated community in western Orange County, prepared in the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education at the University of North Carolina's School of Public Health and dated May 8, 2003. It reports findings on community health services, health status and socioeconomic factors and proposes next steps for action. One volume in various foliations with illustrations and maps.
Linda Efland Richardson's history of the Efland family, whose name the Orange County community of Efland carries. The lineage runs from Bernhard Iffelandt through the emigrant Johan Davitt Ifflandt and Peter Iffland, who took the Efland spelling, down to the twentieth century and Sim Efland (1913-2000). Published by the author in Kernersville in 2001, 84 pages with illustrations, portraits and facsimiles.
The centennial history of Mount Adar Baptist Church at Cedar Grove in northern Orange County, marking 1889 to 1989 under the motto a century of remembrance, a future of vision. Prepared by a centennial committee co-chaired by Nancy Rogers and Jackie Oakley and published by the church in 1989, 36 unnumbered pages with illustrations. Topics include Baptists in North Carolina and church history for Cedar Grove.
Rachel Frankel's Duke University honors paper of 1984 on the Couch tract in the Durham Division of Duke Forest, a history of agricultural land use from 1750 to 1950. The Couch family, family farms and rural land use in Orange County are its subjects. A photocopied typescript, 97 leaves with maps and a bibliography.
Stephen Charles Compton's 22-page history of Chestnut Ridge United Methodist Church at Efland, spanning the 150 years from 1832 to 1982. A short Methodist congregational history of the kind often printed for an anniversary. Published in 1982, 22 centimeters.
Final report of the Orange County Agricultural Task Force, published by the county commissioners in Hillsborough in 1981. A planning document on farms and rural land use in Orange County, 102 pages with illustrations.
A four-page preliminary report from the Bureau of the Census giving county-level agricultural statistics for Orange County, North Carolina from the 1978 Census of Agriculture. Issued in Washington in August 1980 as report AC78-P-37-135, ahead of the final state volume. 28 cm.
W. Ernest Blalock's listing of burials at Chestnut Ridge United Methodist Church cemetery on Route 1 near Efland, in western Orange County, dated March 1, 1980. Compiled in Greensboro, 29 leaves.
Books in OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection whose titles, catalog subjects, or descriptions match this person. The Friends’ recommended starting points are labelled.
Jane Gray Buchanan's genealogy of Thomas Thompson, who died about 1795, and Ann Finney, tracing their descendants from colonial Pennsylvania into North Carolina through the lines of Lawrence, Closs and John Thompson and the allied Finney, McAllister, Buchanan and Hart families. Self-published in 1987, 402 pages with illustrations.
Elizabeth Thompson Schack's family history of John Theophilus Thompson (1750s-1826) and his ancestors and descendants, following the family from Frederick County, Maryland, through Orange County, North Carolina, to Bedford County, Tennessee. Self-published in New York in 1997, 110 pages plus a 24-page section, with two folded plates, illustrations and maps.
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