Biography of :

Dr William P Thompson of Grundy County Missouri

Dr. William P. Thompson was the first white settler in GrundyCounty, Missouri.

There is an effort to have his home placed on the National Register of Historic Places. The information copied here is from the "History of Grundy County, Missouri" published by Birdsall and Dean of Kansas City, Missouri. 1881.

DR.  WILLIAM  P. THOMPSON

William Preston Thompson, the first white man to settle in Grundy county, was born in Washington county, Virginia, in 1788.  He attended school there, read medicine, and attended the medical college at Richmond, Virginia, and practiced his profession a short time in that city.
He was a general in the war of 1812, was paymaster of the army at Norfolk, Virginia, during a portion of that war. Was elected to the legislature of that state, and was also a member of congress from there; was considerable of a politician and an  old time Whig.  He moved to Ray county, Missouri, near Richmond, in 1821, and was appointed general of   the Missouri militia soon after; was in command of the troops during the Mormon war in the State.

He followed his profession in Ray county when he was not engaged in the militia, and was still a general in the militia when he moved to Grundy county, then called Carroll, in the fall of 1833. He located on a farm in what is now Madison township,  and his was the first white family and the only one that fall and winter in Grundy county.  J. Harvey  Meek, a brother-in-law, came with him to help him put up a cabin, and went back that fall and brought his family and another brother-in-law, John Scott, with him in the spring of 1834.  They settled near the doctor, and formed the only settlement in the county.  The doctor's nearest neighbor when he came was Samuel Peniston, three miles east of Gallatin.  In the fall of 1834 Levi Moore settled near where Trenton now is, about ten miles from the doctor, and they were glad to have neighbors so near.  Dr. Thompson's practice extended from Ray county to the Iowa line, and from Linn county to the Missouri river on the west, and he also had a considerable practice in Decatur county, Iowa. At that time he was the best physician in north Missouri, and several of his old patrons now living say they have never had so good a physician. The doctor named all the streams in north
Missouri. Thompson's Fork is named after him. He was judge of this county when he had to go to Carrollton to transact business, then had to go to Chillicothe when this was Livingston county, and to Trenton, and was a judge at his death. He lived in the same place all the time he represented the three counties. Was twice married, his first wife being Miss Jane Russell,
daughter of Major Russell, of Burke's Garden, Virginia (She was Patrick Henry's niece). They had six children. She died there and he married Miss Sallie Meek about the year 1820. They moved to Missouri shortly after their marriage.

His first children were: Eliza,  Maria, John II., Patrick, James and William. Maria married Rev.  David R. McAnally, editor of the Christian Advocate, of St. Louis, and she died in 1862; Eliza married a lawyer named Williams, of Ashland, North Carolina, who moved to St. Louis l861; both died the same year Mrs. McAnally died. Rev.  John H. Thomson, a Methodist preacher, the last of his first children, died in 1880, at Ashland, Kentucky.

By his second marriage there were nine children, named Caroline A., Milton V., Catherine S., William Preston, James Winston, Evans Shelby, and Columbus Keyes; Sarah Jane and Mary Jane died in infancy; Caroline married  John S. Darnaby, she had two children, and died in 1850. Catherine S. married William N. Peery, and she is dead. William Prestonand James W. died young; Evans Shelby went to California for his health, and came home and died shortly after; Columbus K. enlisted in the Twenty-third Regiment Missouri volunteers, was captured the 6th of April, 1862, at the battle of Shiloh, was paroled July, 1862, contracted the chronic diarrhea, got back as far as Nashville, Tennessee, where he was taken to the
hospital; Milton went after him and brought him home, and he died soon after. Milton is the only living representative of Dr. Thompson's family. Dr. Thompson died November 22, 1848. His wife survived him until October 1851. She was born iin Washington County, Virginia, in 1802.
--- Jeryl Bennett
--- jlbennett9422@earthlink.net