Jeremiah Thompson (born 1784) was a New York merchant, ship owner, Quaker, officer in the New York Manumission Society (dedicated to freeing slaves), and co-founder (together with five other men, four of whom were also Quakers) including Isaac Wright in 1817 of the famous Black Ball Line (trans-Atlantic packet). He emigrated to the United States from his native Yorkshire, England in 1801 at the age of seventeen.
Stephen Fox, Transatlantic: Samuel Cunard, Isambard Brunel, and the Great Atlantic Steamships, Harper Collins (2003), ISBN 0060195959, pp. 3–16