dence in the latter city. ITe received the degree of LL. D. from Hamilton college in 1853, and from the University of Tennessee inj.882. Mr. Thomson attained considerable reputation as a conchologist. He published a very successful series of mathemati- cal works, his arithmetical works alone having a sale of about 100,000 copies annually. His books include '• School Algebra " (New Haven, 1843) ; a series of arithmetics (New York, 1845-52); and " Arithmetical Analysis " (1854).
THOMSON, John Edgar, civil engineer, b. in
Springfield, Delaware co., Pa., 10 Feb., 1808 ; d. in
Philadelphia, Pa., 27 May, 1874. He was the son
of John Thomson, the engineer who planned the
first experimental railroad in the United States, and
was thoroughly trained and educated in the pro-
fession by his father. In 1827 he began his own
career in the engineering corps that was employed
upon the original surveys of the Philadelphia and
Columbia railroad, having received his appoint-
ment from the secretary of the board of canal com-
missioners of Pennsylvania, and three years later
he entered the service of the Camden and Amboy
railroad as principal assistant engineer of the east-
ern division. In 1832 he was appointed chief en-
gineer of the Georgia railroad, which then con-
trolled the longest line under a single company in
this country, and later he was its general manager.
In 1847 he became chief engineer of the Pennsyl-
vania railroad, and in 1852 he was made its presi-
dent, which office he held until his death. Mr.
Thomson took chief charge of the road before it
was finished, and during the twenty-eight years of
his administration dividends were regularly paid
on the stock with the exception of a single semi-
annual dividend in 1857. When his presidency
began, the Pennsylvania company owned 246 miles
of road and had a capital of $13,000,000; and it
has since become a corporation controlling 2,346
miles of railroad and 66 miles of canal, with a capi-
tal of $150,000,000. Mr. Thomson possessed re-
markable engineering ability and executive skill.
He was connected with other railroad enterprises in
various parts of the country, and was a director in
many companies.
THOMSON, John Renshaw, senator, b. in
Philadelphia, Pa., 25 Sept., 1800; d. in Princeton,
N. J., 13 Sept., 1862. He studied for some time at
Princeton, but left without taking his degree, in
order to pursue a commercial career. He went to
China in 1817, and in 1820 had regularly estab-
lished himself in the Chinese trade, and opened a
house in Canton, where President Monroe appoint-
ed him U. S. consul in 1823. He returned to the
United States in 1825, married a sister of Com.
Robert F. Stockton, and resided at Princeton. He
was appointed a director of the Camden and Am-
boy railroad in 1835, which office he held during
his lifetime. He canvassed the state in 1842 in
support of the Constitutional convention that met
in 1844, and was nbminated the same year for gov-
ernor by the Democratic party, but was defeated.
On the resignation of Com. Stockton as U. S. sena-
tor in 1853, Mr. Thomson was elected for the re-
mainder of the term, and he was re-elected in 1857
for six years. His second wife was a daughter of
Gen. Aaron Ward, and after Mr. Thomson's death
she married Gov. Thomas Swann of Maryland.
THOMSON, Mortimer, humorist, b." in Riga,
Monroe co., N. Y., 2 Sept., 1832 ; d. in New York
city, 25 June, 1875. He was taken to Ann Arbor,
Mich., by his parents in childhood, and entered the
University of Michigan, but was expelled, with
about forty others, for belonging to college secret
societies. After going on the stage, and then travel-
ling as a salesman for a New York firm, he adopted
journalism as a profession. He was first brought
into notice by his letters from Niagara Falls, in the
New York " Tribune," and he also wrote rhymed
police-court reports, and a series of sketches of New
York fortune-tellers, which was afterward pub-
lished in book-form as " The Witches of New
York " (New York, 1859). His report of the Pierce-
Butler sale of slaves at Savannah, Ga., about 1859,
occupied several pages of the " Tribune," and was
reprinted in the other daily papers, translated into
several foreign languages, and circulated by the
Anti-slavery society as a tract. During about eight
years he delivered many popular lectures, includ-
ing one in rhyme on " Pluck " and one on " Cheek "
in prose. His wife was a daughter of Mrs. Parton,
" Fanny Fern." Thomson's books, as well as most
of his fugitive writings, appeared under the pen-
name of " Q. K. Philander Doesticks, P. B.," which
had been given him by the editor of a university
magazine to which his earliest contributions were
made. Thomson afterward asserted that it signi-
fied " Queer Kritter, Philander Doesticks, Perfect
Brick." His works include " Doesticks — What he
Says " (New York, 1855) ; " Plu-ri-bus-tah : a Song
that's by No Author," a travesty of Longfellow's
" Hiawatha " (1856) ; " History and Records of the
Elephant Club," with "Knight Russ Ockside,
M. D." (Edward F. Underhill) ; " Nothing to Say,
being a Satire on Snobbery " (1857) ; and several
smaller humorous collections.
THOMSON, Samuel, physician, b. in Alstead,
N. H., 9 Feb., 1769; d. in Boston, Mass., in 1843.
He was the originator of the so-called Thomso-
nian system of medicine. He published " Materia
Medica and Family Physician " (Albany) ; " New
Guide to Health, and Family Physician " (new ed.,
London, 1849) ; and his " Life and Medical Dis-
coveries " (Boston, 1825 ; enlarged ed., 1832).
THOMSON, William McClnre, clergyman, b. in Springfield (now Spring Dale) near Cincinnati, Ohio, 31 Dec, 1806. He was graduated at Miami university, Ohio, in 1826, studied at Princeton theological seminary in 1826-'7, and was ordained as an evangelist by the presbytery of Cincinnati on 12 Oct., 1831. He was sent as a missionary to Syria and Palestine in 1833, remained there until
1849, and was afterward again in the Holy Land from 1850 till 1857 and from 1859 till 1876. He is at present a resident of New York city. Dr. Thomson is accepted as an authority in the department of archaeological research, to which he has devoted himself. His works, besides being great aids to the verification of facts that are related in the Scriptures, and giving evidence of profound
learning and critical acumen, have a decided literary value from his skill in reproducing the local color and types and working them into artistic Eictures of the past and present life of the Holy
Land. He has written u The Land and the Book, or Biblical Illustrations drawn from the Manners and Customs, the Scenes and Scenery of the Holy Land" (2 vols., New York, 1859; London, 1860;
new ed., with the results of recent explorations, vols., 1880-6), and " The Land of Promise : Travels in Modern Palestine, illustrative of Biblical History, Manners, and Customs " (New York, 1865), and has contributed articles to the " Bibliotheca
Sacra " and the " American Biblical Repository." —His cousin, Samuel Harrison, clergyman, b. in Nicholas countv, Kv., 26 Aug., 1813; d. in Pasedena, Cal., 2 'Sept., 1882, was graduated at
Hanover college, Ind., in 1837, and was elected professor of mathematics there in 1844. In 1857 he was ordained a minister in the Presbyterian
