by Rev. Canon Dr. Robert Girard Carroon, PCinC
Robert Means Thompson was a naval officer and graduate of the United States Naval Academy. He was born in Corsica, Pennsylvania, on March 2, 1849, the son of Judge John Jamison Thompson and the former Agnes Kennedy. He was commissioned as Midshipman on July 30, 1864, while at the Academy in Newport, Rhode Island, and graduated tenth out of eighty-one in the Class of 1868.
Robert Thompson was involved in no military engagements in the Civil War, although he saw some sea service as a Midshipman. He spent most of the period from his enlistment and commissioning as a Midshipman in 1864 until his graduation in 1868 at the Naval Academy. Upon graduation he was assigned to the U.S.S. Contoocook of the North Atlantic Squadron and was promoted to Ensign on April 19, 1869. Sent to the Mediterranean Squadron, he served aboard the U.S.S. Wachusett and was promoted to Master on July 12, 1870. He resigned his commission on that same date.
Immediately upon leaving the Navy, Robert Thompson began the study of law and graduated from Harvard Law School in 1874. He then served as a reporter for the Massachusetts Supreme Court and in 1876 and in 1877 was elected a member of the Boston Common Council. He was retained as counsel in an investigation of titles of several Canadian mining firms, which resulted in his becoming manager of the Orford Copper Company and later a director of the International Nickel Company. He also served as a partner in Pell & Company in New York. These activities resulted in Robert Means Thompson becoming a very wealthy man. Around 1910 he largely retired from business pursuits and devoted himself to three principal interests: the U.S. Navy, the United States Olympic Committee, and the Military Order of the Loyal Legion.
Thompson was an active alumnus of the U.S. Naval Academy and the first president of the New York Naval Academy Alumni Association. He founded the Navy Athletic Association and donated the bronze doors for the Navel Academy chapel, as well as the Thompson Trophy Cup. Thompson Athletic Field at the Academy is named in his honor. He also served as head of the Navy League and was active in founding the United States Naval Institute. For fifty-five consecutive years he never missed June Week at Annapolis.
A large, vigorous, and athletic individual, Thompson was deeply interested in the promotion of athletic competition, particularly international contests. This interest led to his involvement in the Olympic movement, and he became the first president of the American Olympic Association. He served as chairman of the United States Committee at the Olympic Games in Stockholm in 1912 and in Paris in 1924, the Olympiad later made famous in the film Chariots of Fire.
Robert Means Thompson was elected a Companion of the First Class through the Commandery of the State of Massachusetts on November 4, 1874, and assigned Insignia #1599. He transferred to the Commandery of the State of New York on December 2, 1885. He served on the Council of the New York Commandery in 1897-1898. On May 6, 1914, he transferred to the Commandery of the District of Columbia. He served as Junior Vice-Commander of that Commandery from November 9, 1925, to February 2, 1926; Senior Vice-Commander from February 2, 1926 to May 5, 1926; and Commander for the remainder of 1926 through October 1927. On October 27, 1927, Robert Means Thompson was elected Commander-in-Chief, succeeding Rear Admiral Purnell Frederick Harrington. He was reelected in 1929 and served until his death on September 5, 1930.
Commander-in-Chief Thompson was a gregarious individual known for his great humor and boundless enthusiasm for projects involving every aspect of the Loyal Legion. He particularly enjoyed entertaining Companions aboard his yacht, The Everglades. During his tenure as Commander-in-Chief, he visited every one of the twenty-one commanderies then in existence. This journey, described by Companion Graham H. Powell, began in 1928 in Washington, DC, and covered over 14,000 miles, extending to Los Angeles, Portland, Oregon, and Portland, Maine. All of this was at his own expense, and he was “accompanied by a large party.” The trip enabled him to become personally acquainted with every Commandery in the nation.
Not satisfied with this accomplishment, he personally paid the expenses of at least one Companion of the First Class to attend the Annual Congress in Philadelphia in 1928 so that every state Commandery would be represented when the Constitution was revised. At this meeting measures were adopted abolishing distinctions in ribbons and rosettes between Original and Hereditary Companions. Lieutenant General Nelson Appleton Miles had advocated this change in 1924, and Commander-in-Chief Thompson felt it his duty to carry it through while enough Original Companions were present to vote legitimately on the constitutional change. Thompson maintained, “whether Original or Hereditary we are all Companions of one distinguished and world-known brotherhood, and that no distinction by class should be made.” As Companion Powell also noted, “Only those intimately associated with Colonel Thompson [he was made a Colonel on the staff of the Governor of New Jersey during the Spanish-American War] can have any conception of the vast store of knowledge and wealth of experience ever at his instant call.”
Robert Means Thompson was also a scholar of naval history during the War of the Rebellion. Together with his Naval Academy classmate and fellow Original Companion Rear Admiral Richard Wainwright, he edited for the Navy History Society, of which he was president, Confidential Correspondence of Gustavus Vasa Fox, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, 1861–1865, published in two volumes in 1920.
On April 30, 1873, he married the former Sarah Gibbs, daughter of William Channing Gibbs, Governor of Rhode Island. They had one daughter, Sarah Gibbs Thompson. Robert Means Thompson died on September 5, 1930, while visiting his daughter at Fort Ticonderoga, New York. He had long been interested in the restoration of the historic fort and had contributed generously to its preservation.
As Alexander Leo said of him, “[H]e amassed a great fortune which, however, he seemed to administer merely as a trustee for others. Money to him was merely a means whereby he could help and give enjoyment to others. He apparently cared nothing for it except as a means to this end.” Companion C. Peter Clark of the Massachusetts Commandery wrote, “[N]o Companions of our Order, however obscure or however exalted, exceeded Robert Means Thompson in his love for our Order, or in his devotion to the principles and ideals for which our Order stands.”
His memorial service, attended by hundreds of Companions of the Loyal Legion, was held in the Chapel of the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland. He was laid to rest at Saint Mary’s Episcopal Churchyard in Portsmouth, Rhode Island.