By Col. M. Shoemaker

     William Doliville Thompson was born Feb. 24, 1815, and is a native of Shenango County, N. Y. He removed to Le Roy, in Genesee County, when quite young, and continued to reside there until 1831.

     The great stream of emigration from New England and New York to Michigan and the then far West, which set in about 1830, caught in its flow many of the most enterprising and industrious of the young men of those States, who sought in these then unoccupied of that spirit of enterprise which was denied to them in the more densely populated regions of the East. This was more especially the case with those young men who had only their willing hands and strong hearts with which to carve their way in the world to wealth and fame.

     Among those who determined at an early day to strike out and try his chances in a new country, where he could "grow with its growth and strengthen with its strength," was young Mr. Thompson. He came to Jacksonburgh, as the infant settlement was then called, in 1831, and was among the first to make it his home.

     The first house in the place was built and occupied in 1830, and they could all be counted on the fingers of one hand when he decided that in it and with it he would try his fortunes.

     In the fall of 1832 Mr. Thompson opened a boot and shoe store, the first of the kind in the village. In 1834 he built and occupied a store on the south side of Main street, just east of the public square. Mr. Thompson was elected county clerk on the Democratic ticket, and served for the years 1836-7. He was one of the school board in 1837. In 1838 he sold his stock in trade to Walter Fish, and entered into partnership with George B. Cooper, who was transacting a general mercantile business. In 1841, upon the completion of the Michigan Central railroad to Jackson, Mr. Thompson was appointed freight agent. He continued on the road at Jackson and west of this point, as completed, to Niles, for a period of ten years, including the administration of the road while owned by the State, and after it had passed into the hands of the Michigan Central Railroad Company.

     A period of two years elapsed after the completion of the railroad to Niles before it was built to Chicago, and during this time all the freight and many of the passengers were taken by boats to and from the railroad depot at Niles and St. Joseph, at the mouth on the river St. Joseph. This was the most desirable route from Niles to Chicago and the great West, then rapidly being settled by the emigration which had now assumed such magnitude which had now assumed such magnitude that every avenue and means of conveyance was filled to overflowing. The service of the St. Joseph river was undertaken by Mr. Thompson on his own responsibility, and for his own account. It was conducted with marked success. During most of the time he owned and controlled a small fleet of steamboats and towboats. The extent of the business was such that while Commodore Thompson, as he was then called, conducted the business to the perfect satisfaction of the shippers and the railroad company, he also made it largely remunerative to himself. He, while at Niles, accumulated a capital which enabled him, on the completion of the railroad to Chicago, to return to Jackson, after closing out his stock on the river, and in connection with George B. Cooper, to establish the banking house of Cooper & Thompson. The integrity, strict attention to duty, and business ability displayed by Mr. Thompson in the several places at which he was stationed and in the positions which he filled, were so well understood and appreciated that he has ever since, in a marked degree, retained the confidence of the managers of the Michigan Central Railroad Company; and his influence has been, many times since, of decided advantage to Jackson, when questions of importance to the interest of the city have been under consideration by the officers of that company. In 1851 Mr. Thompson returned to Jackson and engaged in the business of banking. As a member of the firms of Cooper & Thompson, Cooper, Thompson & Co., and of the Jackson City Bank, he has ever since been the leading banker of Jackson. Of the Jackson City Bank, which does much the largest business of any of the six banks of Jackson-and probably more than all the rest of them together-Mr. Thompson has always been general manager and president, and is now understood to be sole proprietor.

     On the first of July 1856, Mr. Thompson was married to Alma M. Mann, in Madison, Wisconsin. They have two children, a son and a daughter.

     Mr. and Mrs. Thompson have traveled in Europe, and the many works of art selected during their sojourn in the old world, which make their home attractive, bear ample testimony to the correct judgment and good taste manifested in their selection.

     In 1862, Mr. Thompson took part in the organization of the Jackson, Lansing & Saginaw Railroad Company. Its successful completion to Mason in 1865, to Lansing in the spring of 1866, and to Wenona, on the Saginaw Bay, in 1867, is in a great measure due to the labors and influence of Mr. Thompson. He not only gave it his personal attention, but also furnished material aid at times when, but for the money advanced by him, the building of the road must have stopped for a time at least.

     This railroad is now extended through the pine woods to within one hundred miles of the straits of Mackinac, and will doubtless soon be completed to that point, there to connect with a railroad to Marquette and the iron and copper regions of the upper peninsula. The one hundred miles of this road terminating at Gaylord were built exclusively by Mr. Thompson, and finished in July 1873.

     In 1866 the Jackson, Lansing & Saginaw Railroad Company bought that part of the Lansing, Amboy & Traverse Bay railroad laying between Owosso and Lansing, and with it the land grant made by the United States to the latter company. This purchase gave much greater value to the stock of the Jackson, Lansing & Saginaw Railroad Company.

     Mr. Thompson is noted for his broad and comprehensive business views. Many enterprises, which have added much to the growth and prosperity of Jackson, owe their success to the fearless manner in which he in some cases invested his capital, and in others sustained those who were interested in building them up. He is one of the firm of Bennett, Knickerbocker & Co., who built and still own and run the extensive steam flouring mill known as the "City Mills." The same firm also own and run the "Stone Mills" at Albion, and is one of the largest manufacturers of flour in the State. Mr. Thompson is one of the principal stockholders in the "George T. Smith Middlings Purifier Manufacturing Company," now extensively engaged in the manufacture of their "purifiers" in Jackson. He is also largely interested in the costly "Chemical Works" and "Pulp Mills" located in the northern part of the city, and he has aided to develop, and is one of the proprietors of coal mines now worked within the city limits. But is as a banker that Mr. Thompson is most widely and favorably known. No man in Michigan enjoys a higher reputation in his particular calling than does the subject of this sketch. The businessmen of Jackson look to him and rely upon him in time of need; and to him his customers never look in vain for those accommodations often so necessary to success in their business.

     Mr. Thompson stands prominent among the citizens of Jackson for his generosity and benevolence. His name is always found among the most liberal subscribers to all projects of a business or charitable nature, and the calls are many in a city so fertile in new enterprises as in Jackson. Both Mr. and Mrs. Thompson make the most praiseworthy use of the goods of this world, with which they are so amply endowed, in dispensing that unostentatious charity most acceptable to its recipients, and most creditable to themselves, fulfilling the Scriptural injunction: "But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth."

     The integrity and liberality of Mr. Thompson have placed him in the front rank in the State in the estimation of its people. He also stands prominent as one of the very few remaining of those pioneers who cast their lot in Jackson, when it had little to boast of and was held in light estimation by villages now of far less importance, because of its marshes, sand-hills and the general uninviting appearance of its surroundings. There are now living in Jackson but two of its citizens who made it their home previous to the advent of Mr. Thompson.

     Without the knowledge attained by actual experience, it is impossible to realize the changes which have taken place in Jackson, in Michigan, in the Northwest and in the great West, extending to the Pacific Ocean, during the business lifetime of a man even now in the midst of his usefulness. No succeeding generation will be able to look back upon and realize the wonderful growth of an empire, and the spread of a civilization in their own time, as can Mr. Thompson in contemplating what he has seen grow up under his own observation since he came to Jackson in 1831.