Daniel Pierce Thompson was an American novelist and lawyer born in Charlestown, Massachusetts

Charlestown, Massachusetts

Charlestown is a neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States, and is located on a peninsula north of downtown Boston. Charlestown was originally a separate town and the first capital of the Massachusetts Bay Colony; it became a city in 1847 and was annexed by Boston on January 5, 1874...

. He married in 1831 and had six children. Thompson began practicing law in 1823 or 1824 and served as secretary of state for Vermont between 1853 and 1855. He became active in the Liberty Party, and edited a paper associated with the anti-slavery movement for six years. In 1856, he joined the Republican party because of its emphasis on abolitionism.

Influenced by James Fenimore Cooper

James Fenimore Cooper

James Fenimore Cooper was a prolific and popular American writer of the early 19th century. He is best remembered as a novelist who wrote numerous sea-stories and the historical novels known as the Leatherstocking Tales, featuring frontiersman Natty Bumppo...

 and Walter Scott

Walter Scott

Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....

, he wrote historical adventure and romance novels, many of which feature life in Vermont

Vermont

Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...

. His best-known work is 1839's The Green Mountain Boys, a historical novel about the land-grant controversy

New Hampshire Grants

The New Hampshire Grants or Benning Wentworth Grants were land grants made between 1749 and 1764 by the provincial governor of New Hampshire, Benning Wentworth. The land grants, totaling about 135 , were made on land claimed by New Hampshire west of the Connecticut River, territory that was also...

 between New York and New Hampshire, and honoring Ethan Allen

Ethan Allen

Ethan Allen was a farmer, businessman, land speculator, philosopher, writer, and American Revolutionary War patriot, hero, and politician. He is best known as one of the founders of the U.S...

's Green Mountain

Green Mountain Boys

The Green Mountain Boys were a militia organization first established in the 1760s in the territory between the British provinces of New York and New Hampshire, known as the New Hampshire Grants...

 militia. The novel also covers Allen's capture of Fort Ticonderoga

Fort Ticonderoga

Fort Ticonderoga, formerly Fort Carillon, is a large 18th-century fort built by the Canadians and the French at a narrows near the south end of Lake Champlain in upstate New York in the United States...

 and the Battle of Hubbardton

Battle of Hubbardton

The Battle of Hubbardton was an engagement in the Saratoga campaign of the American Revolutionary War fought in the village of Hubbardton, then in the disputed New Hampshire Grants territory . On the morning of July 7, 1777, British forces, under General Simon Fraser, caught up with the American...

.

Thompson is a great great uncle of U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas

William O. Douglas

William Orville Douglas was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. With a term lasting 36 years and 209 days, he is the longest-serving justice in the history of the Supreme Court...

.