William Tappan Thompson was a native of Ravenna, Ohio, the first white child born in the Western Reserve. He removed to Georgia in 1835, and became with Judge A. B. Longstreet editor of the “States Rights Sentinel” at Augusta. He was subsequently editor of several other papers, in one of which, the “Miscellany,” appeared his famous humorous “Letters of Major Jones.”
From 1845 to 1850 he lived in Baltimore, editor with Park Benjamin of the “Western Continent;” but he returned to Georgia and established in Savannah the “Morning News” with which he was connected till his death.
He served in the Confederate cause as aide to Gov. Joseph E. Brown, and later as a volunteer in the ranks.
WORKS.
Major Jones’s Courtship.
Major Jones’s Chronicles of Pineville.
Major Jones’s Sketches of Travel.
The Live Indian: a Farce.
John’s Alive, and other Sketches, edited by his daughter.
Dramatized The Vicar of Wakefield.
The titles of these books describe their contents, and the following extract gives their style. The scenes are laid in Georgia; and even when Major Jones travels, he remains a Georgian still.
MAJOR JONES’S CHRISTMAS PRESENT TO MARY STALLINGS.
(From Major Jones’s Courtship.[31])
They all agreed they would hang up a bag for me to put Miss Mary’s Crismus present in, on the back porch; and about ten o’clock I told ’em good-evenin’ and went home.
I sot up till midnight, and when they wos all gone to bed, I went softly into the back gate, and went up to the porch, and thar, shore enough, was a great big meal-bag hangin’ to the jice. It was monstrous unhandy to git to it, but I was termined not to back out. So I sot some chairs on top of a bench, and got hold of the rope, and let myself down into the bag; but jist as I was gittin in, it swung agin the chairs, and down they went with a terrible racket; but nobody din’t wake up but Miss Stallinses old cur dog, and here he come rippin and tearin through the yard like rath, and round and round he went, tryin to find out what was the matter. I scrooch’d down in the bag, and didn’t breathe louder nor a kitten, for fear he’d find me out; and after a while he quit barkin.