“I stood by the bed-side of my expiring and much loved father, closed his eyes, and performed the last filial duties of him.”
Charles Thomson was only 9 years old when his father, John, died aboard a ship destined for the British colonies of America. The young Irish boy arrived on America’s shores with his brothers and his father’s body. Three thousand miles away from home and now an orphan, he seemed destined for a path far different from becoming one of the most important, though now largely neglected, figures of America’s founding.
