136-year-old Thompson family heirloom
finds new home in University Museum

Gold watches are often about show. In addition to its ornamentation, an exquisite watch recently acquired by The University of Mississippi Museum and Historic Houses is also a link to the history of a noteworthy family whose legacy spans more than 150 years in Lafayette County.

This handmade heirloom belonged to Jacob Thompson, a founding trustee of The University of Mississippi. In 1872, Thompson commissioned J.H. Stewart of London to craft the watch, which is equipped with a chiming repeater and a fly-back second hand for timing racehorses.

“Mr. Thompson purchased the watch in London and gave the watch to his son, Macon, who, on his deathbed the following year, returned it,” said Dr. Carolyn Jones 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.”

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 now on view in the museum’s Buie History Gallery.

“Acquiring such a fine watch from a notable family’s descendants to tell a story is what museums are all about,” said Albert Sperath, museum director. “We’re grateful to Dr. Ross for bringing its existence to our attention, and to the family for allowing us to acquire it through the Porter and Elizabeth Fortune Endowment for Museum Acquisitions.”

According to Ross, Jacob 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.

Thompson was secretary of the interior under President James Buchanan, then served in the Confederate Army and the Mississippi Legislature. He also headed the Confederate Commission to Canada. After several years of forced exile, he and his wife, Catherine, settled in Memphis, 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, Tenn.

“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,’ [and his] 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 in Oxford. The item remains in use to this day, according to Ross.