October 27, 2003
Congressman remembered at site of Oxford homeplace
Preservationists piece together Thompson's story
by Lucy Schultze
The Oxford EAGLE
Peeling back the layers of the past, a small
gathering stood near the place where a pioneer settler and statesman
built his family mansion 150 years ago, and later returned from war
and exile to find it destroyed.
"Truth is a lot more interesting than fiction," Carolyn Ross
told the 30 or so people who gathered to dedicate a historical marker
at the homeplace of Jacob Thompson Sunday afternoon.
Ross and others within the Oxford-Lafayette County Heritage
Foundation have been piecing together the story of Thompson's life
over the past several years. Drawn from letters, histories, journals
and the like, the emerging tale follows a young North Carolina lawyer
to the Mississippi frontier.
It traces his rise into national politics, his break with the
federal government as his state seceded and his role in Confederate
leadership during the Civil War. Finally, it finds him returned from
postwar exile to rebuild his life in Memphis, Tenn.
The challenge of putting his story together has been "a
long-term adventure," Ross said, which began shortly after she
retired to Oxford from New Orleans in 1994.
That year, the arts council picnic was held at the home of
Dr. and Mrs. Beckett Howorth Jr., across from William Faulkner's
Rowan Oak on Old Taylor Road. An empty patch of grass toward the
front of the wooded property surely held an antebellum home at one
time, Ross suspected. The Howorths confirmed her guess but had found
only a little of Thompson's story through their own research.
Ross seized upon the mystery and has since traveled to the
Library of Congress, the National Archives and the Museum of the
Confederacy, as well as Thompson's hometown in North Carolina and a
cousin's home in Florence, Ala.
She also made contact with Thompson's living descendants,
including his great-great-great-grandson, Macon Kirkman of
Collierville, Tenn.
Standing on the grounds at Sunday's dedication, Kirkman, who
was named for Thompson's son, felt a new connection to his ancestor.
"I really wasn't told much about him, but in the last three
years I have learned so much," he said. "Just to stand where he
lived, for a direct descendant - it's really rather astonishing."
Oxford resident Will Lewis, who also traces his lineage to
the Thompson family, brought a portrait of Thompson to share at
Sunday's gathering.
"It was in my parent's house, and when they died it came over
to me," he said. "We're very proud of it."
Sitting in front of the Howorth home, an original brick
outbuilding believed to have been Thompson's office, the group
listened as Ross read the account of the Union officer sent to burn
the mansion in 1964. Howorth then read a letter written by Thompson,
seeking some word from his wife after he heard of the house's
destruction.
"Life was really disrupted by the Civil War," Ross said.
"When a house is burned, you lose a lot. You lose a lot of your life."
According to Ross's research, Thompson had come to north
Mississippi as an ambitious young lawyer in the 1830s, and launched a
brisk business in land conveyances while setting up circuit courts in
the 10 counties formerly held by the Chickasaws.
He and his wife, Catharine, had one son but took into their
home younger relatives of lesser means and provided for their
education. He was a founding member of St. Peter's Episcopal Church
and donated a section of land for the cemetery.
Thompson was a founding board member of the University of
Mississippi, where he delivered the Opening Day address on Nov. 6,
1848. He also helped draft the university's rules and curriculum, and
was instrumental in developing the UM library and law school.
Thompson served six terms as a U.S. Congressman before his
appointment as Secretary of the Interior to President James Buchanan.
He resigned when Mississippi seceded from the Union in 1861, and
eventually headed the Confederate Commission to Canada.
After the war, Thompson was forced to live abroad until 1869,
when he returned to Oxford and his ruined mansion. He and his wife
moved to Memphis, where his new life mirrored the one he'd built in
Oxford: caring for young relatives, working in the Episcopal church
and serving as a trustee for the University of the South in Sewanee,
Tenn. He died in 1885.
As local preservationists continue to piece together his life
story, community members who have inherited documents or artifacts
that may relate to the Thompson family may share them by contacting
Ross at 238-2679.