Opportunity. That was what brought James Thompson to New York in 1748 at age twenty.
He came from the linen-manufacturing town of Newry in Northern Ireland.1 Some of the best seed for growing flax, from which linen was made, came from New York, so there was active trade between the two communities. It was not surprising, then, that Thompson gravitated to the merchant community in his new land, establishing his own shipping business between New York and his home country.
