Background
He was born of Quaker parentage at Rawdon, Yorkshire, a cloth-manufacturing village midway between Leeds and Bradford, in 1784. His father, William Thompson, was the eldest of seven brothers engaged in the manufacture of woolen cloths.
He was born of Quaker parentage at Rawdon, Yorkshire, a cloth-manufacturing village midway between Leeds and Bradford, in 1784. His father, William Thompson, was the eldest of seven brothers engaged in the manufacture of woolen cloths.
In 1798, shortly after the opening of the Leeds and Liverpool canal across the Pennine range, Francis Thompson, his youngest brother, came to New York to represent the family business, and in 1801 Jeremiah followed, presumably to assist him. In the course of his business activities in New York, Francis entered into an informal association with Isaac Wright, a Quaker merchant of New York, and with Benjamin Marshall. In 1807 Francis and Isaac Wright became joint owners of the fast-sailing transatlantic ship, Pacific. In 1807 William Thompson had manufactured the first cloth made from Australian wool at the family mill at Rawdon. The product was highly esteemed, and it is probable that the employment of this wool in later years was a powerful influence in promoting the cloth trade of the Thompsons in New York.
Jeremiah seems to have begun business on his own account in 1815, when his name first appears in the New York directory. At that time he also became a joint owner with Francis Thompson, Benjamin Marshall, Isaac Wright, and his son William Wright, in the Pacific. The Pacific was employed in regular trade with Liverpool and in 1816 her owners placed the Amity, and in the spring of 1817 the Courier, in the same service. In October 1817 these five men announced the organization of a line of American packets to make regular sailings from New York and Liverpool on a fixed day in each month. This idea of regular monthly sailings, with strict adherence to the advertised day of departure, is attributed to Jeremiah Thompson.
The Liverpool line began service in January 1818, with the Pacific, Amity, Courier, and a fourth and new ship, the James Monroe. For some years it continued operations with difficulty, in the face of business depression; but in 1822, the practice of regular sailings was copied by other firms, and the "Old Line of packets, " as it was termed, doubled its fleet to provide regular sailings twice a month. During the next few years Thompson's commercial and shipping business greatly expanded. He participated in the formation of packet lines from New York to Belfast and to Greenock, and from Philadelphia to Liverpool.
In 1827, he was designated the largest ship-owner in the United States and the most extensive cotton dealer in the world, with an annual purchase in the United States of about 150, 000 bales. At the end of September 1827, however, the Liverpool house to which he consigned his cotton refused to accept his bills, with the result that he and his brother William (his partner in England) were compelled to suspend payments. He became insolvent in 1828, and all his interests in shipping were sold. Francis Thompson seems also to have failed at about the same time. The absence of a bankruptcy law in New York State at that time appears to have made it impossible for Thompson ever to secure a release from his debts and to regain an independent position in business; yet it may be conjectured that he had a share in the formation in 1828 of a short-lived Union line of packets for steerage passengers only, and in 1831 of an emigrant packet office, both of which conducted their business at 273 Pearl Street, his own business address. This emigrant agency, which was headed by his cousin Samuel Thompson (previously Francis Thompson's partner), led in the later years to the formation of the Black Star line of packets and of the Guion line of steamships, and also had brief connections with the Cunard line.
Thompson died in New York City. The preëminence of New York among the Atlantic seaports was ascribed by Matthew F. Maury in 1839 largely to Thompson's establishment there of shipping service on a regular schedule.
He was an officer in the New York Manumission Society (dedicated to freeing slaves).
He never married.