----Source: 1881 HISTORY OF NORTHERN WI, Chicago: The Western Historical Company, A. T. Andreas, Proprietor (grammar as is), Pg. 413
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HON. WILLIAM THOMPSON PRICE

To no single individual perhaps is Jackson County more indebted for the development of its resources and the establishment of its most important industries than to him who is the subject of this sketch. He is emphatically a representative man of the county, the State and the Northwest. Senator Price was born in Barrel Township, Huntingdon Co., Pa., June 17, 1824, where he received the limited educational advantages afforded by the common schools of those early days. When he had run the gamut of the scholastic curriculum accessible at home, he journeyed to Hollidaysburg in the vicinity, where he entered the service of a merchant in a clerical capacity, passing his evenings in the study of law.

In the Spring of 1845, Price emigrated to the West and cast anchor at Mt. Pleasant, Iowa. His stay here was too short for the fever and ague to deplete his energies, for in the succeeding Fall he removed to Black River Falls, Wis., where he laid the foundation of a flourishing business and a successful career. Immediately upon reaching the Falls he became a partner in a lumbering camp, six miles above Neillsville, and that year with seven men and one yoke of cattle obtained 700,000 feet of lumber in the rough as the results of their season's labor.

In 1846, he entered in the service of Jacob Spaulding at the Falls, as business manager, and in 1847, ran a logging camp on Hall's Creek in conjunction with Samuel Crawley, the latter with the assistance of two men chopping, Price serving as driver and cook. An invoice of assets at the close of the season showed that the company had cut 1,000,000 feet of logs. In 1848, he retired from Mr. Spaulding's employ and became associated with Amos Elliot in a lumber camp in Clark County, where Price & Whipple erected a mill during the following year. Upon the dissolution of the firm Mr. Price engaged in speculations, hauled cord wood, contracted, etc., with profit, and in 1853, united with F. M. Rublee of La Crosse, in logging on Black River.

The next year he removed to La Crosse, where in addition to his engagements with Rublee, he opened a livery stable and established a stage line between that city and Black River Falls. The same year he returned to the Falls where he has since resided, constantly occupied in the business of logging, banking, speculation and politics.

In 1856, he furnished means to establish the Jackson County Banner. The first paper in the county, since merged into the Badger State Banner, and was on the highway to personal and financial prosperity when the panic of 1857, took him at its flood and he was left as was supposed, hopelessly bankrupt, with liabilities aggregating $50,000, and no available assets. But unawed by the outlook, he resumed the contest with fate as he had begun it years before, without capital and by the greatest diligence, careful economy and adherence to principle, he was able seven years later to liquidate every claim held against him, dollar for dollar, with ten per cent interest, an evidence of integrity characteristic of the man.

In 1860, Mr. Price carried on the Albion Mills at the Falls with D. J. Spaulding, and upon his release from the toils of debt, resumed the business of logging, gradually extending his field of operations until to-day he is the most extensive individual operator in the Northwest. His logging camps are located on Chippewa, Black and Yellow rivers and their tributaries, where during the season of 1880-1881, he employed a force of 500 men at an expense of $100,000, for the season, and laid by a crop of 100,000,000 of feet of old and new logs. In politics Senator Price was a worshiper at the Democratic altar until 1854. During that year he in company with others who became disgusted with the squatter sovereignty doctrine of Douglas, and insisted upon an enforcement of the provisions contained in the Wilmot Proviso, left the Locofoco Lodge, and advocated the election of Moses S. Gibson, a Free-Soiler, to the State Senate in place of W. J. Gibson, the regular Democratic nominee. And here it might be observed that this was the first movement in Northwestern, Wisconsin at least, if not in the State, looking to the organization of the Republican party, with which party he has since been closely identified, honored and honoring.

Almost from the day of his arrival in Jackson County he has been made the recipient of official confidence, having served in the capacity of Deputy Sheriff in 1849 and 1855 member of the Assembly in 1851 County Judge, in 1853-4 and a member of the State Senate at the sessions of 1857, 70 and 71, 78 and 79, and 80 and 81, and Presidential in 1868. During the session of 1879, he introduced a joint resolution providing for an amendment to the constitution of the State prohibiting the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors in Wisconsin except strictly for use in the arts, and as medicine. The matter was referred to a select committee, and Senator Price submitted the majority report, supplementing the same with an exhaustive and unanswerable argument in support of his position, which was considered the clearest exposition of the subject ever presented in the Legislature of this State. In addition to these political preferments Senator Price was Collector of Internal Revenue from 1863 to 1865 and president of the Jackson County Agricultural Society for many years. He has been president of the Jackson County Bank since its organization, and president of the Black River Improvement Company, to which position he has been re-elected for sixteen years. In person Senator Price is below the medium height, with strong individuality expressed in the lines of his countenance, which is full of expression and indicates his capacity to invest whatever he narrates with a charm that is magnetic. He is a delightful conversationalist, full of reminiscences and stories that sparkle as a beaker of wine, and possessing a wonderful capacity to interest an audience, is considered one of the ablest debaters in the Legislature of Wisconsin. A man of decided convictions, he holds to that which he believes to be right, does that which he believes to be right and does it like a man. All who know him speak of Senator Price as the most faithful of friends, the most generous of foes, as a man whose integrity is as unchangeable as the laws of the Medes and Persians, and brighter, and one who has done what he could to make the world purer, clearer and brighter, and to lift up the erring, the fallen or the weak and place him upon the platform of an independent manhood. Senator Price was married July 10, 1851, to Miss Julia Campbell, of Grant County, by whom he has two children surviving, a son and daughter.