My Genealogy Hound

HARVEY S. THOMPSON’s birth occurred in Giles County, Tenn., June 20, 1843. He is of Scotch-Irish descent, and was raised and educated in his native county. His education consists of good common schooling, which he greatly improved by much desultory reading and study. After the breaking out of the late war he enlisted as private in the Third Tennessee Infantry in 1863, and served about one year in the Confederate Army. He followed farming and school teaching in Marshall and Maury Counties, Tenn., also in Mississippi two years, and in the meantime stored his mind with the legal lore of Blackstone. In 1876 he had so mastered the profession that he gave up pedagoging and came to Maury County, Tenn., and was admitted to the Columbia bar, and there he has since practiced his profession with success. Mr. Thompson was raised a Whig, but is now Independent in his political views. In 1883 he was appointed United States commissioner for the Middle District of Tennessee, and has since filled the position in a highly satisfactory manner. Mr. Thompson is unmarried, and is a son of David N. and Eliza (Shields) Thompson, who were born in Giles County, Tenn., where they have both long been tenants of the grave-yard at old Elkridge, which contains one of the most ancient and honored Presbyterian Churches in that county. The subject of this sketch is strictly a self-made man; the war left him entirely penniless.