William Thompson (Iowa)
| William Thompson | |
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| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Iowa's 1st district |
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In office March 4, 1847 – June 29, 1850 |
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| Preceded by | At-large Representatives Serranus Clinton Hastings and Shepherd Leffler |
| Succeeded by | Daniel F. Miller |
| Personal details | |
| Born | November 10, 1813 Fayette County, Pennsylvania |
| Died | October 6, 1897 (aged 84) Tacoma, Washington |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Profession | lawyer, clerk, newspaperman, longtime Army officer |
William Thompson (November 10, 1813 – October 6, 1897), a lawyer, clerk, newspaperman, longtime Army officer, and Democrat, was the first person elected to Congress from Iowa's 1st congressional district. His race for re-election in 1848 was the only Iowa U.S. House election to be revoted. After Thompson's opponent, Whig candidate Daniel F. Miller, challenged Thompson's apparent victory, Congress ordered his seat vacated and a special election conducted, which Thompson lost. He was a cavalry officer in the Union Army during the Civil War, and in the regular army for ten years thereafter.
Thompson was born in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, where he attended the common schools. He assisted his father to clear a farm in the dense forests of Ohio, and when twenty-one began to study law in the office of Columbus Delano. In 1839 he went by steamboat down the Ohio River and up the Mississippi River to Montrose in what was then Iowa Territory, before settling in what is now Mount Pleasant, Iowa. In 1843, he was a member of the Iowa Territory House of Representatives. He served as chief clerk of the two succeeding sessions, and became secretary of the 1846 Iowa state constitutional convention.
Iowa was admitted to the union effective December 1846, and given two seats in the U.S. House. The First Iowa General Assembly established the boundaries of those districts in February 1847, and set elections for August 2, 1847 to name their representatives in the Thirtieth Congress (from December 1847 to March 1849). Thompson, running as a Democrat, defeated Whig Party candidate J.B. Browne by 544 votes. The legality of Iowa's 1847 congressional elections was questioned because Iowa Governor Ansel Briggs never signed the law authorizing the elections, but the U.S. House nevertheless seated the winners.
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