John Edgar Thomson was an American civil engineer and industrialist.
Background
Thomson was born on February 10, 1808 in Springfield Township, Delaware County, Pa. He was the son of John and Sarah (Levis) Thomson and descended from Quaker forebears said to have come from England with William Penn. His father, a civil engineer, was connected with the construction of important public works of the time, among them the Delaware & Chesapeake Canal. He has been credited with planning for Thomas Leiper what was probably the first experimental railroad in the United States.
Education
John Edgar had little formal schooling, but from early years he was the constant companion of his father and through parental instruction gained a sound foundation of engineering training which he diligently perfected by reading, observation, and experience.
Through his father's influence he became a member of the state's engineer corps which was at the time making preliminary surveys for a rail line from Philadelphia to Columbia.
Career
He was soon made assistant engineer, and in 1830, when the line of the Camden & Amboy Railroad was located across the state of New Jersey, Thomson was placed in charge of an engineering division. The caliber of the man is shown by the fact that as soon as these duties were completed, he made a trip to Europe to study the new form of transportation which George Stephenson's genius was making possible and to familiarize himself with European and especially English civil and mechanical engineering practice. Returning in 1832, he was appointed chief engineer of the Georgia Railroad which was just being chartered to build a line from Augusta to Atlanta. He remained with this company for fifteen years, meanwhile becoming widely recognized as an authority on engineering practice.
The Pennsylvania Railroad was incorporated in 1847 to build a line from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh that would do away with the inefficient Allegheny Portage Railroad and the slow-serving canals, and place the railroad system of the state on a par with the Baltimore & Ohio to the south and the New York Central to the north in the struggle for western business. It was a critical time in the commercial development of Pennsylvania, and the directors of the company appointed Thomson as their chief engineer to handle this vital competitive problem.
With characteristic energy he set himself to find the most favorable location for the project. When the Portage Railroad was built engineers had declared a road without inclined planes to be impossible of operation in that mountainous territory. The location of the Horseshoe Curve and the construction of a road with practicable grades was Thomson's answer to this pessimistic prophecy and constituted the high point in his career as a railroad engineer. The last link in the through line between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh was completed early in 1854 by the elimination of the Portage Railroad and the completed road was formally opened for traffic in February of that year. Meanwhile, in 1852, Thomson had been made president, and thus placed in position to use his growing influence in securing the funds necessary to the completion of the western extension.
The connecting roads east of the mountains from Lancaster to Philadelphia belonged to the system of state works begun a quarter century earlier. These the state had several times attempted to dispose of, but without success. Finally, in 1857, the entire system of state works, consisting of 278 miles of canals and 117 miles of railroad, together with real estate and rail equipment, was put up at auction. Thomson offered $7, 500, 000, and the property came into the possession of the Pennsylvania.
A through connection with the headwaters of the Ohio was not the limit of Thomson's ambitions, however. He saw clearly that the railroad of the future would be the one that could pick up freight at point of origin and deliver it in its own cars on its own rails at final destination. He had advocated for years before he became president the extension of the road west of Pittsburgh. His policy had resulted by 1856 in the consolidation of various western lines into the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railway. This company was formally leased to the Pennsylvania in 1869 and in 1870-71 the Pennsylvania Company, one of the first of the holding companies, was created to take over the properties west of Pittsburgh which were developing into large northwest and southwest systems.
The growth of traffic from the West made the necessity of a terminal in New York Harbor imperative, a project long contemplated. Thomson's negotiations resulted in a long-time lease, in 1871, of the properties of the United Companies of New Jersey, comprising 456 miles of railroad and 65 miles of canal. In 1869 an independent line from Baltimore to Washington was decided upon and by 1873, through the acquisition of a one-sixth interest in the Southern Railway Security Company, a connection which gave access to all points in the Southern states had been effected.
Thomson took great interest in the establishment of Philadelphia as a transatlantic port and was instrumental in the creation of the American Steamship Company in 1870 under the patronage of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Up to the time of his death, Thomson was thus almost continuously engaged in important construction projects that were to render the Pennsylvania Railroad safe from competitive attack.
Furthermore, from the sixties on, the Pennsylvania was a leader in insisting upon high standards of operating practice and a pioneer in the introduction of improved equipment and devices of various kinds. Thomson's career was coincident with the pioneer and construction stage of railway development in the United States. He was associated with the movement in its beginnings and lived to see the Atlantic and Pacific connected by rail, while his keen vision as to the future place of railroads in the industrial life of the country was in process of rapid realization during his service as chief engineer and president of the Pennsylvania. His ability as a financier was shown in his handling of the affairs of three different railroads under panic conditions--the Georgia Railroad in 1837, the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago in 1857, and the Pennsylvania in 1873. The dividend record of the Pennsylvania Railroad was unbroken from the establishment of the through line between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh to the close of his career. He aided the cause of many civic projects in Philadelphia. He was a member of the Park Commission and rendered valuable service in the extension of Fairmount Park. One of the early steel companies organized by Andrew Carnegie was known as the J. Edgar Thomson Steel Company.
He died in Philadelphia in his sixty-seventh year. By his will he left his estate in trust, the income to be employed to educate and maintain the daughters of railroad men killed in the discharge of their duties. This foundation, known as St. John's Orphanage, is still serving its purpose in Philadelphia.
Achievements
Personality
Although he was taciturn and abrupt in manner, and inclined to action on his own initiative without consultation with others, his judgment was greatly respected and his services were sought in various capacities outside of the railroad business.
Connections
Thomson was married late in life to Lavinia Frances Smith; they had no children of their own, but adopted a daughter.