Thomas Thompson (c. 1797 – 1869) was an American businessman and art collector, who also set up one of the oldest charitable foundations in the United States.

In a Boston pamphlet published in 1846 entitled Our First Men, which lists the names of the most prominent and wealthiest people of the city, one can find the Thompson family.

Thompson writes on April 5, 1852, to the secretary of the city's Board of Engineers; At your request I transmit a statement of my loss by the late fire in the Tremont Temple.

My estimate of the loss – that is, the lowest cost – $92,456 on the pictures, although I do not think that they could be replaced to-morrow for a hundred and fifty thousand.

The instruction to the trustees, made by Thompson simply states that; apply the net income of the trust fund... for or towards the relief and support, of poor seamstresses, needle-women and shop girls, who may be in temporary need from want of employment, sickness or misfortune, in the towns of Brattleboro, Vermont, and Rhinebeck, Duchess County, New York.