Politics / Sports / Law
William G. Thompson
1842–1904 · lawyer, Union officer, mayor of Detroit, baseball club founder
Civil War veteran and lawyer who was mayor of Detroit from 1880 to 1883 and founded the Detroit Wolverines, the city's first major-league baseball team, in 1881.
- Born
Lancaster, Pennsylvania- Died
Yonkers, New York
aged 61- Birth name
- William Gillon Thompson
- Also known as
- William Gillon Thompson
- Detroit years
- 1864–1890s
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
William G. Thompson, a Pennsylvanian educated at Amherst, fought in the Civil War with cavalry and lancer units and as an aide in the 6th New Jersey Infantry, and was badly wounded at Chancellorsville. He had spent the winter of 1861–1862 in Detroit with a lancer regiment and returned after the war, joining the law firm of D. B. and Henry M. Duffield and entering the bar in 1867. He built the Ste. Claire Hotel on Campus Martius in 1879 and in 1881, while mayor, founded the Detroit Wolverines, the National League club that won the 1887 championship. A Republican, he lost the 1876 mayoral race but won in 1879 and 1881, serving from 1880 to 1883. He later switched parties, lost to Hazen Pingree in 1891 and served in the state senate. His first wife was a granddaughter of Elijah Brush. He died in 1904 in Yonkers after being struck by a bicycle.
Highlights
- Mayor of Detroit, 1880–1883
- Founded the Detroit Wolverines baseball club (1881)
- Built the Ste. Claire Hotel on Campus Martius (1879)
- Wounded at Chancellorsville, promoted for gallantry