My Genealogy Hound

JUDGE R. H. THOMPSON, of the city court of Louisville, was born in Kanawha County, W. Va., October 31, 1836, and is a son of R. A. and Mary (Slaughter) Thompson, natives of Culpeper County, Va. His maternal grandfather, Philip Slaughter, commanded a company of minute men during the Revolutionary war; his father, R. A. Thompson, was a prominent lawyer and jurist; he was United States Land Commissioner in California under President Pierce, and engaged in the settlement of Mexican land grants. He died in 1876. The subject of this sketch was reared in Virginia and received a liberal education. When the civil war opened, in 1861, he joined the Thirteenth Arkansas Regiment; he afterward, as lieutenant-colonel, commanded Carlton’s Arkansas Cavalry — served all through the war and saw much hard service. He had studied law, been admitted to the bar, and commenced practice at Santa Rosa, Cal., when the war commenced, and when the war closed he went to Napoleon, Ark., where he remained a year; for another year — 1866-67, he was on the editorial staff of the Detroit Free Press. In 1868 he came to Louisville, and commenced the practice of his profession. He was appointed by Governor Blackburn, on the 24th of December, 1882, judge of the Louisville City Court, and in the following August was elected to the position; was re-elected again in 1886, and is the present incumbent. He was married in 1867 to Miss Lilly Thompson, a daughter of William L. Thompson, of Jefferson County.