Springfield Township.

laying of the keel, the building, launching, and naming of the vessel, and has thought it his duty to make it public, in justice to the merits of the enterprising adventurers."

John Thomson, after his return to his native county, was the leading spirit in the building of the Philadelphia, Brandywine and New London turnpike, which road, now known as the Delaware County turnpike, passes the Pennsdale farm. This company was incorporated by act of Assembly March 24, 1808. The letters patent were issued Sept. 26th of the same year. The road was forty miles long, and during 1810 nine miles were constructed, at a cost of three thousand five hundred dollars per mile. The road was twenty-one feet wide, and was laid to the depth of fifteen inches in broken stone. John Thomson built the bridge on this turnpike, which spans the stream at Stony Creek, and in the wall on the north side of the road is a stone bearing this inscription: "Built Gratis by John Thomson, for the Philadelphia, Brandywine and New London Turnpike Company, 1811." In 1815, when the Legislature authorized the State road to be laid from the Market Street bridge, Philadelphia, to McCall's Ferry on the Susquehanna River, John Thomson was one of the commissioners, and the chief engineer under whose direction the road was surveyed. In 1809 he laid and constructed the Leiper Railroad in Ridley, an account of which road will be found in the history of that township, and was employed as civil engineer in the building of the Delaware and Chesapeake Canal. John Thomson died in 1842. Pennsdale farm had passed to the ownership of Isaac Newton, the first commissioner of agriculture, who was appointed to the office by President Taylor when that bureau was first created by act of Congress, and continued by every administration as its chief executive until his death. The property was subsequently purchased by J. Edgar Thomson. The latter, a son of John Thomson, was born on the Pennsdale farm, Feb. 10, 1808. The son, after the requisite preparation received from his father, commenced his professional career, in 1827, in the engineer corps employed upon the original surveys of the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad, having received his appointment from the secretary of the Board of Canal Commissioners of Pennsylvania. He continued in this service until 1830, when, the State failing to make the necessary appropriations for the continuance of the construction of the road, he entered the service of the Camden and Amboy Railroad Company as principal assistant engineer of the Eastern Division. After leaving their service he visited Europe to examine the public works of that continent, and shortly after his return, in 1832, was appointed chief engineer of the Georgia Railroad, extending from Augusta to Atlanta, in that State, with a branch to Athens, in all two hundred and thirteen miles of railway, - the longest amount of railway at that time under the control of one company in the United States. He continued in that service, as chief engineer and general manager, until his unsolicited election to the position of chief engineer of the Pennsylvania Railroad.

Mr. Thomson entered upon his duties as chief engineer of the road in the early part of 1847. The directors say, in their first annual report, that "in the selection of a chief engineer the board was fortunate in obtaining the services of Mr. John Edgar Thomson, a gentleman of enlarged professional experience and sound judgment, who had obtained a well-earned reputation upon the Georgia road, and in whom the board place great confidence."

On the 2d of February, 1852, Mr. Thomson was elected president of the company, and it was in that capacity he saw completed many important enterprises which he had inaugurated as chief engineer. He was continued in the position, without interruption, up to the time of his death, devoting to the great enterprise twenty-seven years of his life, and bestowing upon it an amount of care and attention never given by any other American to a similar work.

His reputation was established South as well as North, and he confessedly stood at the head of his profession. He did more than any one man who ever lived to establish, create, and perfect the railway system of the American continent.

Occupying the important business position he did, it was natural that Mr. Thomson's influence should be sought for many enterprises. So far as these were for the general good, he cheerfully promoted them. One of his favorite objects was the thorough development of the mineral resources of Pennsylvania, in the value of which he had unlimited faith. Every coal and iron field was thoroughly understood and appreciated by him; and if the great corporation over which he presided could facilitate its development, the work was promptly done. The American Steamship Company of Philadelphia was largely indebted to his sagacity and unwavering interest in the business of the city for its existence. As a member of the Park Commission of Philadelphia, he gained the esteem of his associates, who, after his decease, placed on record a tribute to his high character as an engineer, a citizen, and a gentleman of many accomplishments.

Burdened as he was by such a multitude of duties, and of so arduous and complex a character, it is not surprising that the strain of such labor, continued for nearly half a century, brought his life to a close before he had numbered the threescore and ten years allotted to mankind. While his intellectual faculties remained unclouded, and his strong will evinced no signs of relaxing, yet the human machinery that for near fifty years they had propelled in the wearing grooves of railroad life faltered in its work, and, on the 27th of May, 1874, death came to release him from the turmoil and exactions which had so long harassed him.

Noticeable traits of Mr. Thomson's character were