Daniel Pierce Thompson

Daniel Pierce Thompson (October 1, 1795 – June 6, 1868) was an American author and lawyer who served as Vermont Secretary of State and was New England's most famous novelist prior to Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Daniel P. Thompson was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts on October 1, 1795 and moved to Vermont with his family in 1800. He was raised in Berlin, Vermont, and graduated from Middlebury College in 1820. He then moved to Virginia, where he taught school, studied law, and attained admission to the bar before returning to Vermont to become an attorney in Montpelier.

Thompson was Washington County Register of Probate from 1825 to 1830, and Engrossing Clerk of the Vermont House of Representatives from 1830 to 1833 and 1834 to 1836.

Thompson became active in the Liberty Party and was active in the abolition movement. From 1849 to 1856 he edited the anti-slavery Green Mountain Freeman newspaper.

He was Washington County Probate Judge from 1837 to 1842, and he compiled 1835's Laws of Vermont. In 1838 he was a founder of the Vermont Historical Society.

He served as Washington County Clerk from 1844 to 1846. From 1853 to 1855 he was Vermont Secretary of State.

He joined the Republican Party at its founding in the 1850s.

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