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Location Directions: From Highway 6, exit onto
Lamar Avenue, proceed north. Make a left onto Old Taylor Road.
Proceed until you reach an almost 90 degree left curve in the road, Jacob
Thompson's "Home Place" is located on the left across the street from Rowan
Oak. Click here
for a map. Inscription: Oxford-University United Methodist Church:
The mansion ca. 1853 located on this site was burned by Union troops in
1864. Two original outbuildings are included in the present house,
built in 1869. Jacob Thompson (1810-1885), a native of North Carolina,
moved to Pontotoc, Mississippi, in 1835. A lawyer and a democrat, he
was active in politics and helped organize circuit courts in a number of
northern Mississippi counties. He married Catherine Ann Jones in 1838.
In addition to his law practice in Pontotoc, Panola and Oxford, Thompson was
a cotton grower, U.S. Congressman (1839-57), University of Mississippi
Trustee (1844-57) and U.S. Secretary of the Interior (1857-61). He
resigned his post the day before Mississippi seceded and served in the C. S.
army and in the state legislature. Thompson headed the controversial
Confederate Commission to Canada 1864-65. As such, he was falsely
charged with a number of crimes, including a role in Lincoln's
assassination. Living in exile abroad until 1869, he was granted
amnesty and briefly returned to Oxford before moving to Memphis, where he
was a businessman. He and his wife are buried at Elmwood Cemetary. |
