Ohio History Journal

100     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

in Company D, 160th Regiment, O. N. G. On his re-

turn from military service later the same year the family

moved to Zanesville, where William Oxley Thompson's

school education, which had begun when he was five

years old, was continued. Dr. Thompson has been

quoted as stating that when he started to school he could

read readily in the second reader, and that due to the

instruction of his mother reading and spelling did not

have for him the difficulties experienced by most children

of that early day. His early school education was con-

tinued in different rural schools and the village of

Brownsville, Ohio, while the family lived there.

In 1870 he entered Muskingum College where with

some irregularity he continued until 1878 when he was

graduated. The intervals in his attendance at college

were spent as a hired hand on farms at from eight to ten

dollars a month to pay expenses, and teaching school in

the four months winter terms after the year 1872 at

from forty to fifty dollars a month. At the close of his

college course he found himself short by one hundred

dollars of sufficient money to pay expenses and graduate

with his class. Two farmers of Illinois, for whom he

had worked, borrowed the money and sent it to him.

This sum afterward he paid with interest.

He later entered the Western Theological Seminary

at Allegheny, Pennsylvania, from which he was grad-

uated in 1882. In the same year he was ordained to the

Presbyterian ministry. He was missionary and pastor

at Odebolt, Iowa, 1882-1885; president of the Synodical

College at Longmont, Colorado, 1885-1889; pastor there

1885-1891; president of Miami University, 1891-1899;

president of The Ohio State University, 1899-1925.

William Oxley Thompson          101

On September 21, 1882, Dr. Thompson married Re-

becca J. Allison, of Indiana, Pennsylvania, who died at

Longmont, Colorado, August 15, 1886, leaving one

daughter Bessie. In October, 1887, he married Helen

Starr Brown of Longmont, who bore him two sons,

Lorin and Roger, and died December 27, 1890. On June

28, 1894, he was united in marriage with Estella God-

frey Clark, of Cleveland, who survives him. He is sur-

vived also by one son, Lorin Oxley Thompson, and four

grandchildren, a son of Lorin, and a son and two daugh-

ters, the children of Dr. Thompson's daughter, Mrs.

Sherman Randall, deceased.

After retirement from the presidency of The Ohio

State University, November 5, 1925, Dr. Thompson be-

came president emeritus of that institution. In that po-

sition there was no diminution of the widening sphere of

his helpful service. He stood ever ready to give freely

of his time and energy to a worthy cause, no difference

how humble, that invited his assistance. As he grew in

honored eminence and influence he remained always the

commoner. The struggle of his early years to gain an

education was a basic element in the training that made

him a great educator. The humblest worthy citizen could

always approach him without embarrassment.

In his later years the number of civic duties which

upon request he assumed continued to grow almost to

the last day of his life. A list of them would far trans-

cend the limits for this brief sketch.

We cannot close without reference to his service to

The Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society.

He became a member of its board of trustees soon after

he entered upon his duties as president of the Ohio State

102     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

University, and in that capacity he continued to the last

meeting of the board of trustees, October 24, 1933, pre-

siding on that occasion with his usual activity and vigor.

He felt that his acceptance of even the humblest position

carried with it the obligation to perform its duties. The

records of the Society attest a commendable regularity

in attendance at its meetings and the committees on

which he served, and a lively interest in all matters that

came before it for discussion.

The funeral of Dr. Thompson was conducted De-

cember 12th, from the Indianola Presbyterian Church,

from the pulpit of which he had often preached. Trib-

utes were paid by Dr. Robert R. Reed, pastor of the

church, Dr. Lewis Mudge, stated clerk of the Presby-

terian General Assembly, of which Dr. Thompson served

as moderator for one year, and Dr. J. Harry Cotton,

moderator of the Columbus presbytery.

It is fitting that this brief obituary sketch should

close with the following words from the tribute of Mr.

L. F. Sater, delivered on the occasion of the retirement

of Dr. Thompson from the presidency of the Ohio State

University:

* * * "Upon the foundation so firmly laid by those

who preceded him, it has been the privilege and oppor-

tunity of William Oxley Thompson to direct the up-

building of a great institution, worthy of the citizenship

it would serve. As an able and far-sighted adminis-

trator, he has met and discharged, with increasing suc-

cess and wisdom, the problems pertaining to a tenfold

increase in attendance, and an expenditure commensu-

rate with and attendant upon the ever-widening fields

of university service. Upon the lives of a larger num-

William Oxley Thompson          103

ber of men and women of the state than any other per-

son, he has, by personal example, set the impress of his

own character and ideals. To no one of his generation

is the commonwealth under greater obligations; to no

one does it accord higher respect. A power for civic

righteousness; a lover of his fellow-men; a broad-

minded, generous, courteous Christian gentleman:

"Truly he has had

The heart to conceive,

The understanding to direct,

And the hand to execute."

WILLIAM OXLEY THOMPSON*

BY JOSEPH V. DENNEY.

In his last paper before this Club--that on Wither-

spoon--and in his last funeral address--that on Profes-

sor Matthew B. Hammond--Dr. Thompson emphasized

the significance of family stock and inheritance. In his

own person he once told me he often felt the stirrings

and impulses of his own ancestry; the adventurous spirit

of that paternal grandfather who, a weaver by trade,

came from the north of Ireland in 1814 and settled on

160 acres of land in Guernsey County near New Con-

cord, Ohio, where he lived as a farmer until his death;

the more contemplative inclination of his maternal

grandfather, the wool-carder, of Irish-English stock,

who after losing most of his property by flood, moved to

Cambridge, Ohio, where his youngest son David, a

shoemaker, met and married Agnes Oxley, the school-

* Read before the Kit-Kat Club February 20, 1934.