Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 10.djvu/165

 THOMSON

THOREAU

Pennsj'lTania railroad, and elected president of the latter in 1852. He died in Philadelphia, Pa., May 27, 1874.

THOMSON, John Renshaw, senator, was born in Philadelphia, Pa., Sept. 25, 1800. He studied at the College of New Jersey, but was not grad- uated. His business took him to China in 1817, and while there he was appointed U.S. consul at Canton in 1823. He returned to America in 1825, made his home at Princeton, N.J., and was mar- ried to a sister of Com. Robert F. Stockton. He became interested in the railroad business ; was the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for gov- ernor of New Jersey in 1844 ; was chosen to the U.S. senate in 1853, to fill the unexpired term of Commodore Stockton, retired, and was re-elected in 1857, serving, 1853-63. He was married, sec- ondly, to a daughter of Gen. Aaron Ward (q.v.), of Sing Sing, N.Y. He received the honorary degree of A.M. from Princeton, 1846. He died in Princeton, N.J., Sept. 13, 1862.

THOMSON, Mortimer (" Doesticks "), author, was born in Riga, Monroe county, N.Y., Sept. 2, 1832. He removed at an early age with his par- ents to Ann Arbor, Mich., and matricvilated at the University of Michigan, but with several others was expelled for his connection with secret societies. He subsequently' appeared on the stage and was employed by a New York house as a traveling salesman, eventually becoming a jour- nalist, and contributing letters from Niagara Falls to the New York Tribune. He was also in great demand as a lecturer, two of his most popular subjects being " Cheek " and " Pluck," the latter in rhyme. He married Grace, daughter of Sara Payson (Willis) and Charles H. Eldredge. Mrs. Thomson was a regular contributor to the New York Ledger, as was also her mother, and subse- quently her daughter. Mrs. Eldredge after- ward became the wife of James Parton (q.v.). Mortimer Thomson wrote under the noni-de-plume of " Q. K. Pliilander Doesticks, P.B.," which he had assumed during his university course, the abbreviations signifying '"Queer Kritter " and "Perfect Brick." For his poem, "Nothing to say, being a Satire on Snobbery,"' written by re- quest for George W. Carleton, during the author- ship controversy in 1857 over Butler's " Notli- ing to hear," he received $800. His report of the Pierce-Butler slave sale at Savannah, Ga., written originally for the Tribune in 1859, was translated into various foreign languages and issued as a tract by the Anti-slavery society. He is also the author of : Doesticks— What He Says (1855) ; Plur- ibus-tah, a travesty of Longfellow's " Hiawatha" (1856) ; History and Records of the Elephant Club; Knight Russ Ocksidc. M.D., with Edward F. Underbill, and Tlie Witches of New York (1859), He died iu New York city, June 25, 1875.

THORBURN, Grant, author, was born in Dal- keith, near Edinburgh, Scotland, Feb. 18, 1773. His father was a nail-maker, and from him he learned the business, soon acquiring a reputation for remarkable dexterity. He was accused of treason in 1792 in consequence of his participation in a parliamentary reform movement, but soon re- leased ; immigrated to the United States in 1794, and established himself as a nail-maker in New York city, abandoning the trade for the grocery business in 1801. He was first married to Re- becca Sickles of New York, who died in 1800, and in the following year he married again. During the yellow fever epidemics in New York in 1798 and 1805, he refused to leave the city, and de- voted himself to the relief of the sufferers. Subsequently he engaged in the seed trade, in Newark, N.J., and returned to New York in 1815, practically penniless. Through the aid of his friends he was soon re-established in business, and in 1818 visited Scotland. Having afterward lost a large proportion of his wealth by engaging in the cultivation of mulberry trees, with the view of establishing a silk business, he retired in 1854 to Astoria, Long Island, N.Y., and subse- quently to Winsted, Conn. He received the hon- orary degree of LL.D. and is the author of con- tributions to the Knickerbocker Magazine and the New York Mirror under the pen-name of Lawrie Todd, and of: Forty Years' Residence in America and Men and Manners in Great Britain (1884) ; Fifty Years' Reminiscences of New York (1845); Lawrie Todd's Hints to Merchants, Married Men, and Bachelors (1847) ; Lawrie Todd's Notes on Virginia (1848) ; Flowers from the Garden of Lawrie Todd; Life and Writings of Grant Thor- burn (1852), and its Supplement (1853). See: " Lawrie Todd, or settlers in the New World," by John Gait (London, 1830), and " A Bone to Gnaw for Grant Thorburn," by William Carver (1836), He died in New Haven, Conn., Jan. 21, 1863.

THOREAU, Henry David, author, was born in Concord, Mass., July 12, 1817; son of John and Cynthia (Dunbar) Thoreau ; grandson of John and Jane (Burns) Thoreau, and of Asa and Mary (Jones) Dunbar, and great-grandson of

Philip and Marie (le Calais) Thoreau, of

and Sai'ah (Orrok) Burns, and of Elisha Jones. John Tlioreau, the grandfather of Henry David, emigrated from Jersey to Boston, and removed thence to Concord, settling in Chelmsford, Mass., in 1818, returning in 1821 to Boston, and in 1823 to Concord, where he died in 1859. He was a pencil-maker, and taught his trade to all his children, both sons and daughters. Henry D. Thoreau first attended school in Boston, conclud- ing his preparation for college in Concord, and matriculating at Harvard in 1833. During his college course he won no distinction, puzzling