THOMPSON, William Tappan, humorist, born in Ravenna, Ohio, 31 August, 1812; died in Savannah, Georgia, 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. Wescott, territorial governor of Florida, with whom he also studied law, but in 1835 he went to Augusta, Georgia, and became associated with Judge Augustus B. Longstreet in editing the "States Rights Sentinel." He served as a volunteer against the Semi-holes in 1835-'6, and in the autumn of the latter year established at Augusta the "Mirror," the first purely literary paper in the state. It was not a financial success, and was merged in the "Family Companion" at Macon, whither Mr. Thompson removed. Afterward he conducted the "Miscellany" in Madison, Georgia, to which he contributed his "Major Jones Letters," which first won him a reputation, and which were afterward collected in book-form as "Major Jones's Courtship" (Philadelphia, 1840; unauthorized ed., entitled "Rarity Cottem's Courtship, by Major Joseph Jones"). In 1845 he became associated with Park Benjamin in the publication at Baltimore of the "Western Continent," a weekly, of which he was afterward sole editor and proprietor, but he sold it in 1850, and, removing to Savannah, founded the "Morning News," with which he remained connected till his death. During the civil war he was aide to Governor Joseph E. Brown, and in 1864 he served in the ranks as a volunteer lie was at one time one of the wardens of the port of Savannah, sat in the State constitutional convention of 1877, and was a delegate to the National Democratic convention of 1868. His political editorials were forcible and often bitter, but in private life he was simple and genial. His humorous works at one time were widely popular. Besides the one mentioned above, they include "Major Jones's Chronicles of Pineville" (1843; new and unauthorized ed., entitled "Major Jones's Georgia Scenes"); "Major Jones's Sketches of Travel" (1848); "The Live Indian," a farce; and a dramatization of " The Vicar of Wakefield," which was produced with success in this country and abroad. He also edited "Hotchkiss's Codification of the Statute Laws of Georgia" (1845). After his death another collection of his sketches was published by his daughter, Mrs. May A. Wade, with the title "John's Alive, or the Bride of a Ghost, and other Sketches" (Philadelphia, 1883).