Jonathan Thompson (lawyer)

Jonathan Thompson (December 22, 1782 – August 26, 1823) was an American lawyer and land speculator of the Natchez District in Mississippi, United States, active during the territorial and early statehood period. Originally from Massachusetts, he traveled to Mississippi Territory with Aaron Burr in 1806 in the flotilla now associated with the Burr conspiracy. He is best remembered today for his ownership of what are now historic antebellum mansions; for helping his client Harman Blennerhassett attempt to obtain repayment from Aaron Burr and Andrew Jackson for expenditures made during the Burr expedition (Thompson allegedly tried to extort Jackson, Jackson allegedly threatened to hang Thompson); and for dying with his family in the 1823 yellow fever outbreak in Natchez. Winthrop Sargent, the first governor of Mississippi Territory, was his brother-in-law. Surviving records of his indebted estate have been used by researchers studying the financial systems of the early years of the Cotton Kingdom U.S. South and the impact of the Panic of 1819 on the planter class.