He also served as sheriff of Milwaukee County during the 1880s, and constructed many notable buildings of early Wisconsin.

He was an apprentice plumber and brassfitter in Brooklyn for a year and a half, then moved to in Saratoga County, New York, where he worked for a farmer, who also operated a lumber business on his land.

Finally, he moved to Orange County, New York, where he found his trade as an apprentice builder and mason.

[1] Bentley cast his first vote for James K. Polk in the 1844 United States presidential election, and always afterward identified with the Democratic Party.

[3] In 1880, he was the Democratic nominee for sheriff of Milwaukee County, but suffered his only electoral defeat in the November general election, losing to German American Republican John Rugee.

[3][5] His last public office was park commissioner of the city of Milwaukee, having been appointed by Mayor Thomas H. Brown in 1889.

After emigrating to the United States, Thomas Bentley worked in manufacturing woolen goods in New Jersey until coming to live with his son in Milwaukee in the 1860s.