Memorial Record of Western Kentucky, Volume I and Volume II, Lewis
Publishing Company, 1904, pp. 142-144.  McCracken Co.

DR. JOSEPH W. THOMPSON

     Dr. Joseph W. Thompson, deceased, was for years a leading physician
and surgeon of the city of Paducah, where he was esteemed for his
professional knowledge and skill and beloved for his many sterling traits
of character as a man.
     He was born in Graves county, Kentucky, June 27, 1838, and was
descended from one of the oldest and most highly respected families of the
Jackson Purchase.  His grandfather, Moses Thompson, settled in Graves
county about 1825, and was one of the first associate judges appointed to
preside over the courts of that district.  He was a farmer by occupation,
but a man of more than ordinary mental ability for his day.  He died in
Ballard county, Kentucky, at the home of his son, Augustus Thompson, in
1844.  He was the father of twelve children, including eleven sons, who
inherited not only the mental strength of their father, but the native
energy of their mother, who is said to have been a remarkable woman for the
day in which she lived.  She was one of the founders of the Christian
church in western Kentucky, and was noted for possessing a degree of
refinement and lady-like culture rarely seen among people of the new
country.  Of their sons, Augustus was born in Butler county, Kentucky, in
1815, and removed with the family to Graves county, where in early life, he
began the practice of medicine, having prepared himself for the profession
in the Cincinnati Medical College.  He married, in 1837, Miss Susan M.
Grundy, and reared three sons, of whom the subject of this sketch was the
eldest.  He died in the prime of life of cholera in the latter part of
June, 1849.  His wife, who was born in 1817, died in Ballard county in
February, 1869.  A biography of her youngest son, George C. Thompson,
appears elsewhere in these volumes.
     Dr. Joseph W. Thompson was principally reared on the farm and in
Ballard county.  He received a fair literary education, and at the age of
eighteen years began the study of medicine under Dr. G. Stovall, of Ballard
county, and in 1857 entered the Medical College of Nashville, Tennessee,
whence, in 1858, he went to the medical department of the University of
Pennsylvania, where he was graduated in March of 1859.  He then located in
Ballard county, where he successfully practiced till 1861, when he entered
the Confederate army as surgeon of the Third Kentucky Regiment.  In this
capacity he served for two years, and was afterward placed in charge of
Forrest's Hospital, at Lauderdale Springs, Mississippi, remaining there two
years and until the close of the war.  Immediately after the close of
hostilities Dr. Thompson located in Paducah, where he continued to reside
and to practice medicine till he passed away in death.  He rose to a front
rank in his profession; was a member of the Medical and Surgical Society of
Paducah, of the Southwestern Kentucky Medical Society, of the Kentucky
State Medical Association and the American Medical Association, and was
also a Mason and a member of the Ancient Order of United Workmen.
     February 17, 1867, Dr. Thompson married Miss Victoria H. O'Brien, a
native of North Carolina.  She is still living in Paducah.  In the death of
Dr. Thompson there passed away a beloved physician, a good citizen and one
whom everyone who knew him highly respected.

Thompson Grundy Stovall O'Brien
=
Graves-KY Ballard-KY NC Butler-KY 

http://www.rootsweb.com/~kygenweb/kybiog/mccracken/thompson.jw.txt