not a glad-hander, Thomson was active in many civic projects. Memory and legacy Thomson died in Philadelphia on May 27, 1874 and is interred at The Woodlands Cemetery. A historic marker commemorates the location of his birth in his hometown of Springfield (Delaware County), Pennsylvania, and a street in the community is named for him. The city of Thomson in McDuffie County, Georgia, was named for him. Andrew Carnegie was a great admirer and named his main company the J. Edgar Thomson Steel Company; Carnegie also named the Edgar Thomson Steel Works in Braddock, Pennsylvania, after him. Thomson married Lavinia Frances Smith in 1854. Although they had no children together, they adopted a daughter. By the time of his death in 1874, after the national financial Panic of 1873, Thomson's fortune had declined by 3/4, to $1.3 million. He had bequeathed most of it to charity, including a fund to help orphans whose fathers may have been killed in the course of their railroad duties. Thomson was inducted posthumously into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 1975. Notes References External links Guide to Railroad History online Georgia Railroad History Railroad Extra website Pennsylvania Historical Marker, birthplace. American civil engineers American Civil War industrialists Burials at The Woodlands Cemetery 19th-century American railroad executives Pennsylvania Railroad people People of Pennsylvania in the American Civil War People from Springfield Township, Delaware County, Pennsylvania 1808 births 1874 deaths Engineers from Pennsylvania