William Tappan Thompson
1812=1882.
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.