James Henry Thompson was born in Foxcroft, Maine, on September 14, 1835, to Whitefield G. Thompson and Eunice Thompson. Graduating in 1859 from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, he joined the 12th Maine Volunteer Infantry unit as an assistant surgeon in 1861. That same year he also married Mary Elizabeth “Lizzie” Mayo of Dover, Maine.
While serving with the 12th Maine Volunteers Thompson's regiment was stationed in Louisiana including Baton Rouge and New Orleans. After a short furlough because of ill health Thompson eventually became the Surgeon-in-Chief of the Union Prison Camp at Point Lookout, Maryland in 1864. He continued to work for the Army as a surgeon after the Civil War serving as a surgeon at the National Soldiers home in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, from 1867 until his retirement from the Army in 1870, when he went into private practice.
Thompson also served as one of the directors of the Wisconsin Cranberry Company, which began sometime in the early 1870s. He was also the director of the Plankinton Bank, as well as involved with the timber industry in Wisconsin. J.H. Thompson died in 1891 following a trip to California.
One of his sons, Henry M. Thompson, became President of the Wisconsin Cranberry Company until its dissolution and sale of lands in 1907. Henry M. Thompson's daughter, Edith "Edie" Thompson, served in the volunteer ambulance corps during World War I where she met many admirers.
