There are no signs to identify the donor of the minerals and ornamental rock carvings left to the American Museum of National History by William Boyce Thompson. Which is too bad, because the Colonel’s collection dominates the cave-like mineral room in the New York museum. He would steal the show. That much was clear when […]
Margaret Maguire’s Parents Hated That She Married a Tailor
Though we know very little about the life of my third great grandmother Margaret Maguire (1794-1880), this much has been passed down: Her parents were pretty pissed when she took a tailor, John Robinson, for a first husband in Belfast Northern Ireland. Tailoring may seem like a pretty noble occupation today. But Maguire’s father, a […]
Legendary Frontiersman William Thompson Lost Everything–Several Times
In 1859, William Thompson won an important commission to build a government fort and houses in Yankton, then the extreme frontier of the Northwest Territory. Unfortunately, before the young frontiersman could get paid for his work tragedy struck: Indians burned the buildings. The situation left the 21-year-old penniless. It wouldn’t be the first time. An unusual number of financial tragedies befell the hard-working William Thompson […]
Walking in the Thompson Party Footsteps
Though I had never ventured this deep into the Boyce Thompson Arboretum in Superior, Arizona, as I looked at the rock jutting over the path, I felt like I had been here before. Then I realized: I had seen this site in the infamous Arboretum Picnic pictures. I say “infamous” only because my grandfather, William […]
Palatial Party Boat Was Converted Into Lean-Mean-Fighting Machine
Little did grandmother Meanie know as she snacked on the decks of her uncle-in-law’s party boat, the Alder, that those same decks would years later come under daily fire from Japanese warplanes. That’s right, William Boyce Thompson’s 294-foot-long yacht, the Alder, which he used to sail to cushy ports around the world, was donated to the U.S. Navy […]
Jimmy Filor and His Family Died in Plane Crash
Tony Thompson vividly remembers the day in 1951 when his uncle, Jimmy Filor, died in a plane crash. “I remember coming home from swimming at the Bronxville Field Club to find my mother in tears after having learned that Pop’s cousin, who they were very fond of, had crashed, along with his wife and two […]