| Existing comment:
The next and final private owners of Friendship Hill were the Thompson family. Josiah Vankirk Thompson was another local son, born near Uniontown, Pennsylvania in 1854. A graduate of Washington and Jefferson College in Washington, Pennsylvania, he eventually became president of the First National Bank of Uniontown. Thompson also participated in speculation of coal lands during the 1890s in southwestern Pennsylvania and West Virginia, becoming known as the largest individual owner of coal lands in the United States. He eventually ran into financial problems and Friendship Hill was turned over to creditors. |