My Genealogy Hound

DR. JOSEPH W. THOMPSON, a veteran physician and surgeon of Paducah, was born in Graves County, Ky., June 27, 1838. He descends from one of the early families of the Purchase District, his grandfather, Moses Thompson, having settled in Graves County in 1824 or 1825, and having been one of the first associate judges appointed to preside over the courts of that district. He was a farmer by occupation, but a man of more than ordinary mental ability for his day. He died in Ballard County, Ky., at the home of his son, Augustus Thompson, in 1844. He was the father of twelve children, including eleven sons, who inherited not only the mental strength of their father, but the native energy of their mother, who is said to have been a remarkable woman, for the day in which she lived. She was one of the founders of Campbellism in western Kentucky, and was noted for possessing a degree of refinement and lady-like culture rarely seen among the people of the new country. Of their sons, Augustus was born in Butler County in January, 1815, and removed with the family to Graves County, where, in early life, he began the practice of medicine, having studied his profession in the Cincinnati Medical College. He married, in 1837, Miss Susan M. Grundy; reared three sons, of whom the subject of this sketch is the eldest. He died in the prime of life of cholera in the latter part of June, 1849. His wife, who was born in 1817, died in Ballard County, in February, 1869. Dr. J. W. Thompson was principally reared in Ballard County, where he received the benefits of the common schools, which, with eight months in the schools of Paducah, constituted his entire educational privileges. At the age of eighteen he began the study of medicine under Dr. G. Stovall, of Ballard County, and in 1857 entered the Medical School of Nashville, Tenn., whence, in 1858, he went to the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania, and graduated from that institution in March, 1859. He located in Ballard County, where he practiced successfully until 1861, when he entered the Confederate Army as surgeon of the Third Kentucky Regiment, in which capacity he served for two years, and was afterward placed in charge of Forrest’s Hospital, at Lauderdale Springs, Miss., there remaining two years and until the close of the war. Immediately after the close of the war he located in Paducah, where he has since practiced, ranking among the most celebrated physicians of the State. He is a member of the American Surgical and Medical Association, the Kentucky State Medical Society, the Southwestern Kentucky Medical Society, and the Medical and Surgical Society of Paducah. He is also a member of the Masonic fraternity and the A. O. U. W. Dr. Thompson was married in Todd County, Ky., February 17, 1867, to Miss Victoria H. O’Brien, a native of North Carolina and of Irish ancestors. They have two children, Augustus and Ada.