drama.

Mr. Thompson is the author of several very pleasing and successful
comedies, but the play JOSHUA WHITCOMB is the best known and most
popular. The leading character is said to have been drawn from Captain
Otis Whitcomb, who died in Swanzey in 1882, at the age of eighty-six. Cy
Prime, who "could have proved it had Bill Jones been alive," died in
that town, a few years since, while Len Holbrook still lives there.
General James Wilson, the veteran, who passed away a short time since,
was well known to the older generation of today. The last scene of the
drama is laid in Swanzey and the scenery is drawn from nature very
artistically. Mr. Thompson is the actor as well as creator of the
leading character in the play. The good old man is drawn from the quiet
and comforts of his rural home to the perplexities of city life in
Boston. There his strong character and good sense offset his simplicity
and ignorance. He acts as a kind of Providence in guiding the lives of
others. To say that the play is pure is not enough--it is ennobling.

The success of the play has been wonderful. Year after year it draws
crowded houses--and it will, long after the genius of Mr. Thompson's
acting becomes a tradition.

Mr. Thompson is a gentleman of wide culture and extensive reading and
information. Not only with the public but with his professional brethren
he is very popular on account of his amiable character. Naturally he is
of a quiet and benevolent disposition, and has the good word of everyone
to whom he is known.

As one of a stock company he never disappointed the manager--as a
manager he never disappointed the public.

In private life he has been very happy in his marital relations, having
married Miss Maria Bolton in July, 1860. Three children--two daughters
and one son, have blessed their union.

A book could well be written on the adventures and incidents that have
attended the presentation of the great play since its inception. Nowhere
is it more popular than in the neighborhood of Mr. Thompsons's summer
home. When a performance is had in Keene the good people of Swanzey
demand a special matinee for their benefit, from which the citizens of
Keene are supposed to be excluded.

In Colorado a Methodist camp-meeting was adjourned and its members
attended the play _en masse_. Such is the charm of the play that it
never loses its attraction.

Mr. Thompson is in the prime of life, about fifty years old. His home is
in New