Jasper County Democrat, Volume 3, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 February 1901 — MAURICE THOMPSON DEAD. [ARTICLE]

MAURICE THOMPSON DEAD.

The Indiana Author Passes Away at Crawfordsvilie. Mu uriee Thompson, the author, died nt Crawfordsvilie, link, Friday morning, after an illness of many weeks. * Maurice Thompson came of a Virginia family and was of Scotch-Irish descent. He was horn at Fairfield, Ind,, Sept, 0, IH-44. Ilis parents removed to Kentucky when he was a child, and thence to northern Georgia, where they lived until 1808. Young Thompson's mother was a woman of strong character and excellent education, his father a wandering Baptist minister, who rode round the country on horseback and spent little time at home. The son was educated for a civil engineer, but developed more taste for languages and literature than for the calling set before him. He learned Greek, Latin and French. His first writings were iti verse, which appeared in Southern papers. He served in the Confederate army during the Civil War. At the close of the war Thompson made an extended trip to Florida, which laid the foundation for some of his delightful Southern sketches, published later. Iti 1808 he settled in Crawfordsvilie, Ind., where he obtained a position ns a civil engineer for a railroad. He married the daughter of Col. John Lee, a railroad president. Soon after he abandoned railroading and with his brother. opened a law office, but gradually drifted into literature. Among Mr. Thompson’s works are “At Love's Extremes,” "A Banker of Bankersville," "Sylvan Secrets,” TBy Ways and Bird Notes” and a volume of poems.