Captain Charles Thompson

Captain Charles Thompson, of Ludington, Mich., master of the F. & P.M. No. 3, is one of the younger lake captains on the Great Lakes, and has risen by slow but steady promotion through almost all the grades of marine service. He is pre-eminently a self-made man, owing his responsible position solely to his own faithful and efficient services.

He was born in Bradford, Penn., March 12, 1861, the son of George W. Thompson. The father was a native of Clarington, Forest Co., Penn., on the Clarion river. He was a soldier during the war of the Rebellion; at the close of which he engaged for a number of years in the oil business at Bradford, and there died when our subject was a lad of twelve years. Charles had up to this time received a good elementary education, but his school days ended with the death of his father. He went to Buffalo, and then reached Chicago on the steamer Cuba, arriving June 24, 1874, and, when but a boy of thirteen years, he began his career on the lakes.

In 1895 he entered the service of the F. & P.M. as mate of No. 4, and in October of the same year appointed captain of the F. & P.M. No. 1, and when she was sold by the company he became master of No. 2, serving until February 1, 1897, when he was made captain of the F. & P.M. No. 3, this boat plying between Milwaukee and Ludington on schedule time.

Captain Thompson lives, with his wife, in a pleasant home at Ludington, and is esteemed as one of the most reliable and substantial men on the lakes.

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Volume I

This version of Volume II is based, with permission, on the work of the great volunteers at the Marine Captains Biographies site. To them goes the credit for reorganizing the content into some coherent order. The biographies in the original volume are in essentially random order.

Some of the transcription work was also done by Brendon Baillod, who maintains an excellent guide to Great Lakes Shipwreck Research.