Click the image to play slideshow
OXFORD,
Miss. – Gold watches are often all about show, but one recently
acquired by the University of Mississippi Museum and Historic Houses is
also about a noteworthy family whose legacy spans more than a hundred
years.
This handmade heirloom belonged to Jacob Thompson, a
founding trustee of the university. In 1872, Thompson commissioned J.H.
Stewart of London to craft the watch equipped with a chiming repeater
and a fly-back second hand for timing race horses.
“Mr. Thompson
gave the watch to his son Macon who, on his deathbed the following
year, returned it,” said Carolyn J. Ross, a historian who initially
informed the museum about the timepiece. “Jacob wore it in a pocket in
his son’s memory. He then bequeathed the watch to his oldest
great-grandson, as yet unborn when Jacob died. It wound up in the hands
of his elder granddaughter Kate, who gave it to her husband, Van Leer
Kirkman.”
In a free, public brown bag lunch presentation at noon Jan. 29 at the museum, Ross plans to discuss Thompson, his son and the watch.
A descendant told Ross that in 1927 Van Leer Kirkman Jr. inherited the watch and placed it in a bank box. The museum purchased it from family descendants with funds from the Porter and Elizabeth Fortune Acquisition Fund. It is on display in the museum’s Buie History Gallery.
“To acquire such a fine watch from the family descendants to tell a story is what museums are all about,” said Albert Sperath, museum director. “We’re grateful to Carolyn Jones Ross for bringing its existence to our attention and to the family for allowing us to acquire it.”
According to Ross, Thompson (a Democrat) served 12 years in the U.S. House of Representatives. He was a board member of the Oxford Female Academy and a founder of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Oxford.
During the Civil War, Thompson was Secretary of the Interior, serving in the army and the state Legislature. He also headed the Confederate Commission to Canada. After several years of forced exile, he and his wife Catherine settled in Memphis, Tenn., where he resumed active support of the Episcopal Church and higher education. He was active in diocesan affairs and served on the three-man executive committee of the University of the South. Thompson died in 1885 and was buried in the family plot in Elmwood Cemetery in Memphis.
“Whereas much information is available about Jacob Thompson’s life, the same is not true of Macon’s,” Ross said. “When mentioned at all, Macon is described as ‘sickly’ whose facial disfigurement in childhood was a source of sorrow to his parents.”
Ross said her research revealed that despite Macon Thompson’s health problems, he led a rich and full life. “His father had every reason to present this watch to him to express both love and high regard for his son’s activities during and after the Civil War,” she added.
Following their son’s death, Jacob and Catherine Thompson honored Macon’s memory by donating a baptismal font to St. Peter’s Episcopal Church and a lectern to Calvary Episcopal Church. The items remain in use to this day, according to Ross.
The University Museum, Fifth Street and University Avenue, is open 9:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays and 1-4:30 p.m. Sundays. For more information or to request assistance related to a disability, call 662-915-7073 or visit http://www.olemiss.edu/musuem.