[William Wirt Hastings (seated) and William Pressley Thompson]

John Hood
November 1936
photograph
The Nashville Banner
Vanderbilt University Archives

William Wirt Hastings and William Pressley Thompson grew up on neighboring farms in Beattie’s Prairie, the endpoint of the Trail of Tears, now Delaware County, Oklahoma. They were classmates at a log school house that was part of the Cherokee public education system and were roommates at the Cherokee Male Seminary in the capital Tahlequah before setting out for Vanderbilt in 1885. After graduating in 1889, they went into law practice in Tahlequah with an established Cherokee attorney, Elias C. Boudinot, and remained in partnership after Boudinot’s death until 1899. At the same time, they were active in Cherokee politics and government. Hastings served as education superintendent, Attorney General, and close advisor to the multiple Cherokee chiefs. Thompson served as clerk of the Cherokee House of Representatives, then Senate clerk, and then executive Secretary of the principal chief. Both represented the Cherokee Nation in delegations to Washington, D.C., and in court cases, and both served on the Dawes Commission.  Active in Democratic politics, Hastings served nine terms in Congress while Thompson served as mayor of Tahlequah and in 1923 as a judge on the Oklahoma Supreme Court Commission, handling the high court’s overflow docket. In the 1930s, they visited Vanderbilt together and posed for the Nashville Banner.