TOMPSON, William, clergyman, born in Lancashire, England, in 1598; died in Braintree, Massachusetts, 10 December, 1666. He emigrated to this country about 1634, and became first pastor of the church at Braintree (now Quincy). He went on a mission to Virginia in 1642, but was silenced for nonconformity and compelled to return to New England. He was an acceptable preacher, and described by Cotton Mather as a "pillar of the American church "; but he was subject to fits of depression, and in one of them committed suicide. His contemporaries describe him as " an author of reputation," but, with the exception of several prefaces to the books of others, his publications have all perished.--His son, Benjamin, educator, born in Braintree, Massachusetts, 14 July, 1642; died 13 April, 1714, was graduated at Harvard in 1662, became master of the Boston Latin-school in 1667, and three years later took charge of the Cambridge school, preparatory to Harvard, which post he held for nearly forty years. He probably died in Cambridge, but is buried in Roxbury. The inscription on his tombstone describes him as "a learned school-master and physician, and ye renowned poet of New England." He wrote an "Elegy on the Reverend Samuel Whiting, of Lynn, Massachusetts," which is printed in Cotton Mather's " Magnalia," and a poem of some merit descriptive of King Philip's war, entitled " New England's Crisis" (Cambridge, 1675).--Benjamin's son, Edward, clergyman, born in Boston, Massachusetts, 20 April, 1665; died in Marshfield, Massachusetts, 10 March, 1705, was graduated at Harvard in 1684, taught for several years at Newbury, and from 14 October, 1696, until his death was pastor of the church at Marshfield, Masse On his tombstone is inscribed : "Here in a tyrant's hand doth captive lieA rare synopsis of divinity."

His last sermons, entitled" Heaven the Best Country," were published (1712).