Patrick Watson Tompkins (1804May 8, 1853) was an American lawyer and politician who served one term as a

U.S. Representative The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they c ...

from

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

from 1847 to 1849.

Biography

Born in Kentucky in 1804, Tompkins received a limited education. He studied law, and was

admitted to the bar An admission to practice law is acquired when a lawyer receives a license to practice law. In jurisdictions with two types of lawyer, as with barristers and solicitors, barristers must gain admission to the bar whereas for solicitors there are dist ...

and commenced practice in

Vicksburg, Mississippi Vicksburg is a historic city in Warren County, Mississippi, United States. It is the county seat, and the population at the 2010 census was 23,856. Located on a high bluff on the east bank of the Mississippi River across from Louisiana, Vi ...

. He served as judge of the circuit court.

Congress

Tompkins was elected as a Whig to the Thirtieth Congress (March 4, 1847 – March 3, 1849). He served as chairman of the Committee on Expenditures in the Department of the Navy (Thirtieth Congress).

Later career and death

He moved to California during the gold rush of 1849, and died in

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

, May 8, 1853. He was interred in Yerba Buena Cemetery, and later moved around 1870 to Golden Gate Cemetery.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tompkins, Patrick Watson 1853 deaths Members of the United States House of Representatives from Mississippi 1804 births Mississippi Whigs Whig Party members of the United States House of Representatives 19th-century American politicians Mississippi state court judges 19th-century American judges