1833-1901
Adoniram Judson Thompson
Physician/Farmer NC/NC
Adoniram Judson Thompson was born into a family of North Carolina farmers and plantation owners on 1 December 1833, and by 1849 he was a student at Wake Forest College. We have been unable to determine where he went to medical school but by 1858, Dr. Thompson was registered as a physician in Wake County, NC. When the new town of Apex, NC, was incorporated in 1873 on a proposed new railroad, Dr. A. J. Thompson was one of the 14 who would be “among the first to buy lots in the new community.”[1]
The first doctor to establish a practice in the town of Apex was Dr. A. Judd Thompson. Both the 1872 and the 1877-78 editions of the North Carolina Business Directory list Dr. Thompson as Apex’s only physician.[2]
The Compiler’s contacts with North Carolina historian Warren Holleman about Dr. Thompson resulted in these exchanges:
To be honest, he has been a bit of an enigma to me as well. For example, his family is buried at the Apex cemetery, but he is not. That’s rather unusual unless he had a second marriage or moved away. I’m not sure where he lived, either. He owned a lot of land in the new town of Apex in the early 1870s, and built a nice house in town. But, as best we can tell, never lived in the house and may never have lived in town. My guess is that he lived out in the country, which wasn’t hard to do in our tiny town, which was only 1 mile square.[3]
Surveyor Stanley Smith’s research into Apex land titles revealed that Dr. Thompson was involved in real estate which sheds some light on his domestic life:
In 1872 A J Thompson bought 9 acres from A F Thompson and Annie S. Thompson. It appears he was in acquisition mode as a single man in Apex in 1872 as he acquired five other parcels around town in or about that same year.
Dr. A J Thompson executed deeds as a seller of real estate in Wake County (Apex) from 1874 to 1900. It is interesting to note that the 7 December 1874 conveyance to Gray Jones indicates he is a single man. An 1880 conveyance indicates he is married to I E (Yates?) Thompson. An 1889 conveyance indicates he is married to Bessie E (BE) Thompson.[4]
Uncovering the story of Dr. Adoniram Judson Thompson also led to some speculation about his first marriage to Isley E. Yates:
One other thing to consider: I noticed Dr. Thompson’s wife was a Yates from Chatham County, which probably refers to the eastern edge of Chatham County only a few miles from Apex. That is the area that Matthew T. Yates came from. He was one of the first Baptist missionaries to China, the first to translate the NT to the Shanghai dialect, and just an amazing human being. So it’s possible that Matthew T. Yates was Islie Yates’ uncle or great uncle or cousin. And that might explain why she was attracted to a man named “Adoniram Judson”![5]
Dr. Adoniram Judson Thompson died on 5 November 1901 and is buried in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Halifax, Virginia.
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[1] Warren Lee Holleman and C. P. Holleman, Jr., Pluck, Perseverance, and Paint. Apex, North Carolina: Beginnings to 1941 (Houston, TX: Halcyon Press, Ltd., 2010), p. 23.
[2] Ibid., p. 131.
[3] Warren Holleman in an email to the compiler, February 28, 2023.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.