Henry Elliot Thompson was born on March 13, 1841 in Cooperstown, Pennsylvania. He was the fifth child of Hugh G. And Martha Thompson, and had a twin brother named Joseph. Hugh Thompson was a tailor by trade, and he moved his family from Pennsylvania to Ohio and back before settling in Vernon County, Wisconsin sometime prior to 1850. Henry and his twin Joseph grew up in the Springville area and worked as farmers before enlisting in the Wisconsin volunteers when the Civil War broke out. Henry joined the Twentieth Wisconsin Infantry in the summer of 1862 and was assigned to Capt. Augustus H. Pettibone's Company A. Thompson saw service in Arkansas, Missouri, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, and Alabama. Henry survived the war and returned to Wisconsin briefly, but he pursued a career as a carpenter and surveyor in Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska, and finally South Dakota where he died on November 17, 1912.
John Nevins Thompson was the oldest son of Henry E. Thompson, born on February 10, 1869 at Hebron, Indiana. He lived in Belle Fourche, South Dakota and, in 1904, took up a homestead claim thirty-five miles south of Ekalaka, Montana. In the summer of 1891 John, along with his brother William, drove a herd of horses with John T. "Buckskin Johnny" Spaulding through Yellowstone National Park and kept a diary of their experiences. John Thompson died on March 15, 1943 in Bozeman, Montana. His son, J. Nevin Thompson, is the donor of this collection.
From the guide to the The Thompson Family Papers, 1862-1892, (Montana State University-Bozeman Library, Merrill G Burlingame Special Collections)
