Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1889, volume 6).djvu/119

Rh York, but declined. From 1802 till 1814 he was associate justice of the state supreme court, mean- while declining the mayoralty of New York city, and in the latter year he became chief justice, which post he held till he was called in 1818 to the port- folio of the navy in President Monroe's cabinet. In 1823 he was raised to the bench of the U. S. supreme court, to succeed Judge Brock- hoist Livingston, where he remained till his death. Judge Thompson was inter- ested in many benev- olent enterprises, and at the time of his death was the oldest vice-president of the American Bible society. He made a reputation for sound legal learning on the bench of his native state, which he sustained in the U. S. supreme court. His funeral sermon, which was delivered by Rev. A. M. Mann, in the Reformed Dutch church, Poughkeepsie, was published in pamphlet-form (Poughkeepsie, 1844). The vignette of Judge Thompson is copied from the original painting by Asher B. Durand. Yale and Princeton gave him the degree of LL. D. in 1824 and Harvard in 1835.

THOMPSON, Thomas, philanthropist, b. in Boston, Mass., 27 Aug., 1798 ; d. in New York city, 28 March, 1869. He was graduated at Harvard in 1817, and studied divinity under William Ellery Channing, but abandoned it to devote himself to the fine arts. His first collection of pictures, which was said to be the finest in Boston at that time and valued at $92,000, was destroyed in the burning of Tremont Temple in 1852. He gathered another collection worth $500,000, and, besides this, pos- sessed property valued at nearly $1,000,000. He had bequeathed this to form a fund the income of which should be used to aid poor needle-women of Boston, but because his property was taxed in that city at what he thought an exorbitant rate, he re- moved to New York about 1860, cancelled his will, and made another in favor of the needle-women of Brattleboro', Vt., and Rhinebeck, N. Y. Mr. Thompson's mode of life was eccentric, and it is said that before his removal from Boston he had never travelled on a steamboat or a railroad.

THOMPSON, Thomas W., senator, b. in Boston, Mass., 15 March, 1766 ; d. in Concord, N. H., 1 Oct., 1821. He was graduated at Harvard in 1786, studied law, was admitted to the bar, and practised in Salisbury from 1790 till 1810, when he removed to Concord. He was a member of the state house of representatives, and its speaker in 1813— '14, served in congress in 1805-'7, and was treasurer of his state in 1809. He was appointed U. S. senator to fill the unexpired term of Nicholas Oilman, deceased, and served from 19 Sept., 1814, till 3 March, 1817. — His grandson, John Leverett, soldier, b. in Plymouth, N. H., 2 Feb., 1835 ; d. in Chicago, 111., 31 Jan., 1888, was the son of William C. Thompson. He studied at Dartmouth and Williams, and read law in Worcester, Mass., and Poughkeepsie, N. Y., and then at Harvard law- school, where he was graduated in 1858. He was admitted to the bar at Worcester, and continued his studies in Berlin, Munich, and Paris. In 1860 he settled in Chicago, and at the opening of the civil war enlisted as a private of artillery. He rose to be corporal, and was made lieutenant in the 1st Rhode Island cavalry, in which he was commis- sioned captain, 3 Dec, 1861 ; major, 3 July, 1862 ; lieutenant-colonel on 11 July; and colonel on 4 Jan., 1863. In March, 1864, he took command of the 1st New Hampshire cavalry. He served first with the Army of the Potomac, and in 1864 with Sheridan in the Shenandoah valley, taking part in many engagements, and at the close of the war re- ceived the brevet of brigadier-general of volunteers. In 1866 he formed a law-partnership with Norman Williams. Gen. Thompson was connected with the work of the Citizens' association, and was presi- dent of the Union league club of Chicago.

THOMPSON, Waddy, lawyer, b. in Pickens- ville, S. C, 8 Sept., 1798 ; d. in Tallahassee, Fla., 23 Nov., 1868. He was graduated at South Caro- lina college in 1814 and admitted to the bar in 1819. He was a member of the legislature from 1826 till 1830, when he became solicitor of the west- ern circuit. During the nullification excitement in 1835 he was elected by the legislature brigadier- general of militia. From 1835 till 1841 he was a member of congress, and was active in debate as a leader of the Whig party, and serving in 1840 as chairman of the committee on military affairs. In 1842 he was appointed minister to Mexico. Dur- ing his mission, he made two important treaties, and procured the liberation of more than 200 Texan prisoners, many of whom were sent home at his own charge. On his return he published " Recollections of Mexico," which is valuable as a calm estimate of that country written on the eve of the war with the United States (New York, 1846). He was a cotton-planter in Florida, but spent most of his time after his return from Mexico on his estate near Greenville, S. C.

THOMPSON, William, soldier, b. in Ireland about 1725; d. near Carlisle, Pa., 4 Sept.. 1781. He emigrated to Pennsylvania, and in the French and Indian war was captain of a troop of mounted militia. When a battalion of eight companies was recruited in Pennsylvania, after the fight at Lex- ington, he was placed in command, with the rank of colonel. They were the first troops that were raised on the demand of the Continental congress, and they arrived at the camp in Cambridge, Mass., before 14 Aug., 1775. On 10 Nov. this regiment drove back a British landing-party at Lechmere point. Thompson was made a brigadier-general on 1 March, 1776, and on 19 March he relieved Gen. Charles Lee of the command of the forces at New York. In April he was ordered to Canada to re-enforce Gen. John Thomas with four regiments, which were afterward increased to ten. He met the remnant of the Northern army on its retreat from Quebec, and assumed the chief command while Gen. Thomas was sick, yielding it up on 4 June to Gen. John Sullivan, by whose orders, two days later, he made a disastrous attack on the enemy at Trois Rivieres. He was there taken pris- oner, and in August returned to Philadelphia on parole, but was not exchanged for two years.

THOMPSON, William Tappan, humorist, b. in Ravenna, Ohio, 31 Aug., 1812; d. in Savannah, Ga., 24 March, 1882. His father was a Virginian and his mother a native of Dublin, Ireland, and the son was the first white child that was born in the Western Reserve. He lost his mother at the age of eleven, and removed to Philadelphia with his father, who died soon afterward, and the lad entered the office of the Philadelphia "Chronicle." This he left to become secretary to James D. Wes-