Althom is a riverside community along the west bank of the Allegheny River in Deerfield Township.

It lies a little closer to Irvine than to Tidioute.

It’s name is sort of in-between, too.

According to Ernest Miller’s Place Names in Warren County, Althom was named by ‘the railroad.’ It was “a shipping point for lumber and silica sand.”

There was no family named Althom for which the place is named. Nor is it a mixture of two names — say Allen and Thomas.

The ‘Al’ was taken from the Allegheny River.

The ‘thom’ part of the place is from a name — Thompson. Robert Thompson was an early settler and was engaged in the lumber trade, according to Miller.

Thompson, born in Deerfield Township in 1816, “engaged quite considerably in lumbering on his own account, taking frequent and regular trips down the river on rafts, until he became well and widely known as a skillful and trusty pilot,” according to J.S. Schenck’s History of Warren County.

Thompson purchased a large tract of land in what was then Dunn’s Eddy (just north of what is now Althom) at about the time of his marriage, according to Schenck.

He married Hannah Thompson, who was a Thompson by birth and marriage, having been born in Deerfield Township to John Thompson in 1843, according to Schenck.

He worked that land — “cultivated with diligence” — “at the same time continuing and increasing his activities as a pilot and lumberman,” Schenck said.

In addition to Althom, two islands among the Allegheny Islands Wilderness bear the Thompson name — Thompson’s Island (the one known for the Revolutionary War battle) and R. Thompson’s Island.