Israel Thompson

Thompson and his brother Jesse were in Dutchess County, New York at the start of the American Revolution, in the precinct of North East. Israel Thompson was there by 1771, as he was chosen as an assessor of quit rents and as a road commissioner in April, 1771.^[1] Israel and Jesse both served as officers in the Dutchess County militia. Promoted to major, Israel Thompson commanded several companies of militia fortifying Red Hook near Peekskill in August–September, 1776.^[2] He was later part of the Saratoga Campaign.^[3] Later in the Revolution he served as one of the Dutchess County Commissioners of Conspiracies, who were in charge of investigating and arresting Tories and in some cases sending them down-river to British-held New York City.^[4]

Arriving in the early 1780s, Thompson was one of the early settlers in Pittstown, New York, to the northeast of Troy.^[5] He served in the 5th New York State Legislature (1781-2) and the 8th New York State Legislature (1784). In 1788 he was elected as an Albany County delegate to the state convention which ratified the United States Constitution, where he voted in the negative.^[6] He was elected supervisor at the first Pittstown town meeting in 1789.^[7] When Rensselaer County was created in 1791, he was made one of the first judges.^[8] In 1797 he was elected to the 21st New York State Legislature, which met in 1798, but failed to be elected to the next session.^[9]

Thompson's wife's name was Millicent; she was the daughter of Enos Mead, who died about 1774 leaving substantial land claims in Dutchess County to her and his other children.^[10][11]

Israel Thompson appears on a mural of the ratification in the United States Post Office (Poughkeepsie, New York), painted as a Works Progress Administration project during the building's construction 1937-9.^[12]