Dr. Asaph Thompson, (1771-1834)
Marian and Agnes Wilder were the daughters of
James Lewellyn Wilder, the son of
Francis L. Wilder, the son of
Hadassah Thompson Wilder, the daughter of
Asaph Thompson the son of
Peter Thomson, the son of
Thomas Thomson, the son of
John Thomson, Jr., the son of
John Tomson, who immigrated from England to Massachusetts about the year 1621.
Asaph Thompson was born in Halifax, MA in 1772. He was the son of Peter Thomson and Rebecca (aka Rebekah) Thomas. Asaph was descended from several Pilgrim families who came on the Mayflower to Plymouth, MA in 1620. He was also a descendant of Lt. John Tomson, the founder of Middleborough, MA. The Thompson name changed over the generations in early America from Tomson to Thomson, then finally to Thompson during the generation of Asaph. Nothing is known of Asaph’s life as a boy. He grew up on land that his family had lived on for perhaps 150 years in the Middleborough and Halifax area of Massachusetts. As a young man, he attended Brown University in Rhode Island (then known as Rhode Island College). From Brown University’s “Encyclopedia Bruoniana” come the following that were surely part of Asaph Thompson’s life as a student there:
”… The Laws of 1783 prescribed that “No person may expect to be admitted into this College, unless ... able to read accurately construe and parse Tully and the Greek Testament, and Virgil; and ... able to write true Latin in prose, and hath learned the rules of Prosody and Vulgar Arithmetic; and shall bring suitable Testimony of a blameless life & conversation.”
“….Student Housing became available with the completion in 1772 of the second floor of University Hall, where the students [including Asaph one would assume] took up residence above their classrooms. “
This building still stands at Brown.
Further, the rules for students:
“…Every student shall attend public worship every first day of the week, where he, his parents or Guardians shall think proper ... N.B. Such as regularly and statedly [sic] observe the seventh day as a Sabbath, are exempted from this Law; and are only required to abstain from secular employments ...
“It is ordered that if any Student of this College shall deny the being of a God, the existence of Virtue & Vice; or that the books of the old and New Testament are of divine authority ... he shall be expelled from the College – Young Gentlemen of the Hebrew Nation are to be exempted from this law, so far as it relates to the New Testament and its authenticity.
“Every scholar is strictly forbidden to play at cards, or any unlawful Games; – to swear, lye, steal, get drunk, or use obscene or idle words, strike his fellow Students or others; or keep company with persons of a known bad Character; or attend at places of idle or vain Sports –
“No student, excepting those who statedly attend the Friends Meeting, is permitted to wear his hat within the College walls ...
“Every student is required to treat the Inhabitants of the Town and all others with whom they converse with civility and good manners ...
“No student shall refuse to open the door when he shall hear the stamp of foot or staff at his door in the entry, which shall be a token that an officer of instruction desires admission, which token every student is forbid to counterfeit, or imitate under any pretence whatever –
“No student is permitted to make a practice of receiving company in his room in study hours; or keep spirituous Liquors in his room without liberty obtained of the President –
“No student may at any time make any unnecessary noise of tumult either in his room or in the Entries; but each one shall endeavour to preserve tranquility and decency in words & actions – “
An idea of the subjects taught is preserved from this time at Brown. All students took courses in the classics as part of their education:
“…Classics was the mainstay of the course of studies, at least for the first two years, as set forth in the Laws of 1783, which prescribed, “for the first year in Latin, Virgil, Cicero’s Orations and Horace, all in usum Delphini. In Greek, the new Testament, Lucians Dialogues & Zenophon’s Cyropaedia; – For the second year, in Latin, Cicero de Oratore and Caesars Commentaries; – In Greek, Homer’s Iliad & Longinus on the Sublime ...”
Also of interest is the life in the students commons of the early 1790’s. Here again from the “Encyclopedia Bruoniana”
“…Commons was for many years the provider of food for boarding students. Early students took their meals in an unadorned room in the College Edifice under the watchful eye of the steward. The menu, as prescribed by the Laws of 1783, provided a main meal which varied to include during each week two meals of salt beef or pork, two meals of fresh meat, one meal of soup and fragments, one meal of boiled meat, and one meal of fish, accompanied by “good small Beer or Cyder.” Breakfast consisted of tea or coffee with buttered bread, or chocolate or milk with unbuttered bread. Supper could be the same as breakfast, or might be milk with hasty pudding, rice, or samp. The rules decreed that the steward should dine with the students, acting as “the head of a family at his Table,” and that the students “shall sit together in alphabetical order, and while there, shall behave decently, making no unnecessary noise or disturbance, by either abusing the Table Furniture, or ungenerously complaining of the Provisions.” That this ideal behavior did not prevail is evident from a letter written by George W. Keely 1824 to his father in June 1820:
“A fellow then comes up with a kind of sheep-bell and just rattles it at the top of each story; in a moment we all issue out and drive down stairs, enough to break our necks, into the dining room, where there are placed 6 tables as large as the long boards we used to dine on at Ridgmount. These are covered with hot rolls, butter, very good Coffee & tea & plenty of milk and sugar; after that Tutor has asked a blessing we set on like bears issuing out of their dens after 3 months of starvation. As not a word is spoke every thing is called for by a thump of the knife on the board; and as each one wants every necessary immediately, for the first few moments the noise is sufficient to distract; this one thumps for sugar, that for milk; the one for Coffee and the other for tea with horrid jar of discord presently all is still save the clattering of plates & the Clack of our milk and it is quite amusing to see the immense piles of bread that are demolished in a very few minutes.”
Asaph studied medicine and theology at Brown, in the class of 1795, one of twenty six graduates. The program of the graduation ceremony of 1795 still exists. It is interesting to read the following excerpt from the “Bruoniana” regarding the graduation ceremony:
“…Academic Costume was first worn at Commencement in 1786, after the Corporation voted on March 13 that “in future, the Candidates for Bachelors degrees, being Alumni of the College should be clad at Commencement in black flowing robes & caps similar to those used at other Universities. Resolved, that an exclusive right of furnishing such robes ... be granted and confirmed to an Undertaker for the space of fifteen years.”
Interesting details of the diploma itself come to light:
”… Degrees were conferred for the first time in 1769, when seven Bachelor of Arts degrees were granted to students who had completed the prescribed course, along with twenty-one honorary Master of Arts degrees. The early laws of the college also provided that “All such as shall have applied themselves to their Studies, or any honourable profession in Life for the space of three years from the time of their taking their first Degree, and have been guilty of no gross crime, may expect to receive the honour of a second degree, provided they apply for it one week before Commencement.” The next law provided that every candidate for a degree pay the President four dollars. In 1772 six of the seven graduates of 1769 were awarded Master of Arts degrees. The Bachelor of Arts degree continued to be the only earned degree until the advent of Francis Wayland’s “New System” in 1850,…”
Asaph was one of only twenty three physicians that Brown University produced between 1792 and 1802. According to the John Thompson family genealogy, Asaph Thompson was the first member of this Thompson family to receive a college education. Albert Thompson, Asaph’s grandson, described Asaph in the late 1800’s:
“…Asaph Thompson, M.D., …came from Halifax, NS [see below note] and, settling in Maine, became a noted physician in his day. He had a large and profitable practice, which he attended to on horseback, and continued active until his death, which took place in middle age. He married Polly Wood, who died at the age of fifty-five years, and her children were: Adasa [Haddassah], Silas, Mary, Persus, and Asa. Silas Thompson [Hadassah’s younger brother] …son of Dr. Asaph Thompson, inherited the Norridgewock homestead [belonging originally to Asaph], and was there engaged in general farming until his death., which took place at the early age of thirty four years. He voted with the Democratic party in politics, and he was liberal in his views…”
Note: Silas Thompson above named a Silas Thompson and Sibel Thompson as Asaph’s parents, and has them coming from Nova Scotia. This doesn’t jibe with the other information about Asaph Thompson. Silas and Sibel were the names of Asaph’s wife Polly’s parents, however, so it’s possible he or whoever transcribed the story had the grandparents confused. The reference to Halifax Nova Scotia may be further confusion, assuming that the Halifax that Asaph came from was in nearby Nova Scotia, and perhaps not knowing that the Thompsons had been settled in the Halifax Massachusetts area for over 150 years before Asaph left to move north in Maine.
In the late 1790’s, Asaph quitclaimed his right to his father’s estate in favor of his brothers, and left for Maine. He may have gone to Thomastown in Maine first. By 1803 he is shown as a taxpayer in the area of Norridgewock. On October 15, 1804 he married Mary “Polly:” Wood of Norridgewock. A week later, one of the most spectacular Aurora Borealis, or “Northern Lights”, was observed widely throughout New England, including the communities around Norridgewock. Perhaps Asaph and Polly viewed this event as a wonderful omen for their future. Over the next 13 or so years he and Polly had at least five children, Hadassah, Mary, Persis, Silas, and Asa.
Asaph may well have held and loved Hadassah’s baby boy Francis Wilder, born in 1829. He must have borne with great sorrow the death of Hadassah in 1832, and her younger sister Persis of consumption in January of 1834. Asaph Thompson died according to family records “suddenly, in his chair” in March of 1834, at Norridgewock. On other records he is listed as dying of “Apoplexy”, or, a stroke.
A Brief accounting of the life of Doctor Asaph Thompson, of Norridgewock, Maine.
A Brief Account of the Life of Asaph Thompson