Brigadier-General William Thompson

In Carlisle’s Old Graveyard at the corner of East South and South Bedford Streets is located an eight foot Celtic cross commemorating the burial place of Brigadier-General William Thompson. The large cross and granite base were lowered into place by a helicopter on March 17, 1988.¹ Due to the General’s Celtic background the Ancient Order of Hibernians was responsible for donating the monument.² Enclosing the Thompson and Hamilton family graves is a cast iron fence restored by the Gobin Guards a local unit of the Pennsylvania Army National Guard. A plaque on the fence reads “In honor of Brigadier-General William Thompson, 1736-1781, the first Colonel of the U.S. Army, given by the Military Order of World Wars, the Donegal Society of Wilkes-Barre, the Gobin Guards of Carlisle, 1987.”

Thompson was an adventurous individual always exploring new occupations and tasks involving great risks and challenges. He was born in Northern Ireland in 1736 and immigrated to the colonies approximately nineteen years later.³ His occupation was surveying. With the out-break of the French and Indian War he was made a First Lieutenant in Captain Hence Hamilton’s Company on January 16, 1756 and a Captain on December 21, 1757 under Colonel John Armstrong.⁴

On March 29, 1762, William Thompson and Catherine Ross were married in Lancaster City by the Reverend Mr. Thomas Barton. Catherine was the daughter of another Church of England minister George Ross (senior) Rector of Immanuel Church, New Castle, Delaware and Catherine Van Gezel Ross.⁵ From 1763 through 1766 the couple resided in York, Pennsylvania where their first two children were born. Around 1767 William purchased a farm located in Middleton Township, Cumberland County approximately two miles west of Carlisle.⁶

From 1759 through 1767 Thompson and his step-brother-in-law, John Ross, a Philadelphia attorney, operated a trading post near Fort Pitt. In partnership with the Philadelphia firm of Bayton, Wharton & Moragan, Thompson and Ross provided supply provisions to Fort Pitt.⁷ Next he became part owner along with George Ross (junior) and George Stevenson of the Mary Ann Furnace, an iron operation located on the Condoras Creek, York County. In 1775 William took on the major task of surveying ten thousand acres of land in Kentucky and the Ohio Valley. He was commissioned by the Governor of Virginia as the latter’s plan to distribute the land as back-pay to officers that had served in the French & Indian War.⁸

In addition to surveying and business operations, Thompson found time to serve as Justice of the Peace for Cumberland County (1772-73) and was elected to the Pennsylvania General Assembly representing Bedford County (1771-1775).⁹ He was re-elected in 1775 representing Westmoreland County while in October of that year accepting a commission to serve in the Continental Army. Originally the unit was known as Thompson’s Battalion of Riflemen, Pennsylvania’s first troops in the Revolutionary War. In January 1776, the unit became the First Regiment of the Continental Line and on March 1, 1776 Congress appointed him Brigadier-General. On April 1, 1776 he took command of an expedition against Canada and on June 8, 1776 was taken prisoner by the British at the battle of the Three Rivers near Quebec. The General was not exchanged until October 25, 1780. By September 3, 1781 the exhausted patriot died at his Middleton Township farm.¹¹