Thomas Simpson (1786-1853) was the first publisher of the first newspaper in Washtenaw County, the Emigrant (later the Western Emigrant). Born in 1786, he started the Emigrant in 1829, and sold it to John Allen and Samuel Dexter after printing only five issues.

Simpson was known to his contemporaries as Elixir Boga, and is described by Doll as typical of a certain type of frontier character - able, restless, and impulsive.

a man of talent, thought addicted to the excessive use of whiskey, and when under its influence his belligerent propensities were greatly increased. The peculiar sobriquet was given him on a account of a phrase used by him when threatening an assault: "I will give him the Elixir Boga".

Simpson moved on to found the Oakland Chronicle in Pontiac, and later moved to Saginaw where he was postmaster from 1832-1834 and keeper of the lighthouse at the mouth of the Saginaw River. He died, a suicide, in 1853.

Sources:

• Doll, A History of the Newspapers of Ann Arbor 1829-1920, chapter 1.
• Pioneer Collections, v. 7 of 1886, p. 228