John Martin Thompson

John Martin Thompson (c. 1829 – 1907) was a lumberman, Native American tribal and civic leader, born in the old Cherokee Nation prior to removal in what is now Bartow County, Georgia, USA. He was the son of Benjamin Franklin Thompson, a South Carolinian of Scot-Irish descent, and Annie Martin, a mixed blood Cherokee. She was the daughter of Judge John Martin, J.M. Thompson got his formal education, along with his brother William Wirt Thompson, at the Western Military College, then located at Georgetown, Kentucky. The brothers spent two years at the college before returning to east Texas and becoming deeply involved in the families plantation.

American Civil War Thompson served in the Confederate Army, and left two slaves running his flour mill. He returned after the war to his family poor after his slaves had departed. During the reconstruction era and into the early twentieth centuries Thompson along with his sons built their vast holdings in timber through a series of sound business decisions. In 1881, they left the Rusk County area, moving operations into Trinity County in order to market their product via the Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad. They facilitated their marketing campaigns by developing connections to retail lumberyards. Further, they organized a series of companies to expedite and manage their ever-growing timber empire. Thus were formed the Thompson and Tucker Lumber Company followed by the J. M. Thompson Lumber Company, the Thompson Brothers Lumber Company, and finally the Thompson and Ford Lumber Company. By 1907, the various companies owned over of land while operating mills in communities such as Willard, Doucette and Grayburg. In 1906, the company relocated all corporate interests to Houston.

Later life The settlement he lived in was named "Mt. Taber". Following the death of William Penn Adair in 1880, until his own death in 1907. He was succeeded as Executive Committee Chairman of the Texas Cherokees and Associate Bands by Chief John Ellis Bean and shortly thereafter by Chairman Claude Muskrat.

Family His business successor was his son Hoxie Harry Thompson. It was H.H. Thompson who sold to the United States Forest Service for $12.50 an acre. These lands eventually formed the largest part of the Davy Crockett National Forest. By 1960, Hoxie Thompson had sold neally all of the Thompson lands, but maintained most of the mineral rights.