Daniel Thompson had powerful friends, including President, Andrew Jackson, and Michigan's first governor, Stevens T. Mason.
A Connecticut native, he would eventually become sheriff of Wayne County, as well as a successful tavern owner.
When Daneil and his wife, Susan Ann Bradley moved to Michigan in 1824, they initially rented farmland from William Woodbridge, a Whig who had served as territorial governor and later, succeeded Mason as Governor. The property was known as Livernois Farm.

Shortly after his arrival in the then, Territory of Michigan, he was commissioned by the United States government to open two roads through the dense wilderness which then surrounded Detroit. These roads became, the Chicago Road (now Michigan Avenue) and Gratiot Road.
Thompson was elected sheriff twice, serving from 1841 to 1845 and carrying out his responsibilities "fearlessly".
One of his 10 children, Bradley Hemingway Thompson, later held the same office.

Thompson operated a log cabin tavern a half of a mile south of Dearbornville, after serving as sheriff. Thompson had invited a young friend, William Nowlin to the tavern to see his hogs, coaxing the young Nowlin if he had caught a hog, he would give it to him. This is written in an autobiography titled, The Bark Covered House, 1876 written by Nowlin. Nowlin went on to write, that he had caught a hog and quickly jumped over the fence with an angry sow chasing after him.

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