Meriwether Jeff Thompson was born on January 22, 1826, in Harpers Ferry, Virginia (modern-day West Virginia), to Meriwether and Martha Thompson. His father was a paymaster in the United States army.

 

His father was probably a bar keeper. He grew up and attended school in Charlestown, Virginia (modern-day West Virginia). He moved to Missouri in 1847, and he married Emma Hayes there on March 4, 1848. They had at least four children: Charles, born around 1849; Henry, born around 1853; Mary, born around 1855; and Martha, born around 1860. They settled in St. Joseph, Missouri, and Thompson worked as a clerk, grocer, and merchant. He became mayor of St. Joseph in the late 1850s.

 

He sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War, and on May 12, 1861, he tore a United States flag down from in front of the St. Joseph post office. He became a brigadier general in the Missouri State Guard in July 1861, and he spent the war participating in raids against Union forces. He was captured on August 22, 1863, and imprisoned at Johnson’s Island in Ohio, and then Fort Delaware in Delaware. He was exchanged on August 3, 1864, and quickly rejoined Confederate forces. In February 1865, he became the commander of the Northern Sub-District of Arkansas. He surrendered his command on May 11, 1865.

 

Thompson moved to Memphis, Tennessee, after the war and earned a living as a grocer. He eventually settled in New Orleans, Louisiana, where he became the chief engineer of the state Board of Public Works. He returned to St. Joseph in the 1870s, and he died there on September 5, 1876.

 

Image: Meriwether Jeff Thompson (courtesy Wikicommons)

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