Thomas Thompson

From Brattleboro Community Brain Trust

Thomas Thompson, married to Elizabeth Rowell Thompson, established the Thomas Thompson Trust, helped build the Brattleboro Memorial Hospital.

Thmpson Trust Background

"The 1869 will of wealthy businessman Thomas Thompson established a trust fund "for or towards the relief and support of poor seamstresses, needle-women and shop girls, who may be in the temporary need from want of employment, sickness, or misfortune, in the towns of Brattleboro, Vermont and Rhinebeck, Dutchess County, New York, the amount being equally divided between the two towns." Thompson's will also required that surplus funds be distributed to other charities in the same towns. Finally, the will declared that the Trust itself would not go into effect until the death of his wife, Elizabeth Rowell Thompson, who died in 1899."

(source: The Thomas Thompson Trust Records, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, Mass. http://asteria.fivecolleges.edu/findaids/sophiasmith/mnsss116_bioghist.html )