Thomas King Tompkins

1817– 1885

Born in Walcott, Lincolnshire, England; moved to upstate New York with his family when he was eleven years old; sailed to California on ship Brooklyn with his wife and two daughters; worked for John Sutter when gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill in 1848; immigrated to Salt Lake Valley prior to 1850, when he accepted a mission call to the Society Islands; traveled to the islands in company with his family, Louisa B. Pratt, Joseph Busby, Jonathan and Caroline Crosby, and others; because of difficulties with the Society Islands government, returned to San Francisco in 1851 with his family, Hiram Clark, and others; settled his family in San Bernardino, California, in 1852; returned to Salt Lake City in 1858 following onset of Utah War; returned to San Bernardino in 1862; died there. (See “Ship Brooklyn Saints,” in Carter, Our Pioneer Heritage, 3:585–86; Bullock, Ship Brooklyn Saints, 221; Ellsworth, Journals of Addison Pratt, 604; Ellsworth, History of Louisa Barnes Pratt, 419; Lyman, Payne, and Ellsworth, No Place to Call Home, 573; GQC journal, Aug. 20, 1851.)