Stories from Bovina's Cemeteries - Where is William Thomson

In reviewing the names of people buried in Bovina cemeteries, I noted that there were 375 different surnames.  The most common one is Thomson, with 136 buried in Bovina.  The second most common is Russell, with 100.

The single most common first and last name is William Thomson.  There are 10 different William Thomsons buried in Bovina. They are not all related to each other, though some are.  Here are photos of some of the William Thomson monmuments, courtesy of Ed and Dick Davidson.

This is the oldest William Thomson buried in Bovina.  Born in Scotland in 1801, he was the son of Andrew Thomson and Margaret Blythe.  He and his wife, Jennett Hamilton, had six children, including a son, William B.  The son was born in 1843 and died in 1929.  He also is buried in the Bovina Cemetery, but for some reason, no stone exists for the gave.

There is some confusion in the records concerning this William Thomson, though most have the Thomson without the 'p.'  The son of David and Jennette, he and his wife Agnes had four children.  One of them was William Henry Thomson, whose stone is below.

William's brother David Lowe Thomson named one of his son's for his brother.  William David Thomson lived to be almost as old as his uncle, dying in 1958 at the age of 90.  He too is buried in Bovina.

This William Thomson was the son of Andrew Thomson and Elizabeth Rutherford.  He was born in Delaware County, but his wife was born in Scotland.  They died within a few months of each other in 1884.  William and his wife Amelia had four children, including two sons, Andrew Dixon Thomson and David Lyle Thomson.  The Thomson brothers both died in January 1890.  Note that William and Amelia's monument is made of zinc.

These two William M. Thomsons on this one stone (along with the other names on the stone) were the children of Walter E. Thomson and Jane Murray.  The first William died in 1872 at the age of 13.  Jane had another son after his death and, as was common in the 19th century, they named the newborn son after the son they lost.  This second William was only 9 when he died in 1883.  There are three other children of Walter and Jane on this stone, all dying before reaching maturity.  Walter and Jane had twelve children, but it appears that only 3, a son and two daughters, made it to adulthood.

This stone is that of one of the 3 surviving children of Walter Thomson, W. Elliott Thomson.  Note that he named one of his sons William W. Thomson.  The son is buried here with his parents. 

William S. Thomson was the son of Andrew Thomson and Margaret Isabella Scott.  Married to Jennie Alice Archibald in 1890 in Bovina, they had three children.  This William is a grandson of the 'first' William mentioned at the opening of this blog.

In reviewing records about these various Williams, I sometimes noted Thomson spelled as Thompson.  In the Bovina Cemetery, however, all the monuments for the Williams I found consistently use Thomson.  There is one grave without a stone, however, for a William Lyle Thompson.  The son of Rev.  Marvin Thompson and his wife, Leona Thomson.  Yes, both of William's parents were Thompsons, but with different spellings.  His parent's headstone clearly shows the different spellings in the Thomson/Thompson last name.  His mother's grandparents happen to be the William and Amelia Thomson mentioned earlier.  And though William has no headstone, there is one for his brother, Robert, and it has the Thompson spelling.