Page:Men of Mark in America vol 2.djvu/393

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THOMAS WILLIAM SYMONS
329

connecting and tributary waters. For many years he has had the charge of United States lighthouses from Detroit, Michigan, to Ogdensburg, New York.

He is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers; honorary member of the Western Society of Civil Engineers; member of the Metropolitan, and the Chevy Chase clubs at Washington, and of the Fort Orange club, at Albany, New York; honorary member of the Buffalo club; of the Ellicott club; of the Buffalo Yacht club; and of the Erie Yacht club, Erie, Pennsylvania. He has held the office of director in the American Society of Civil Engineers. He is the author of "The Columbia River" (1882); "A Ship Canal from the Great Lakes to the Sea" (engineering report, 1897,) and very many official reports. He is affiliated with the Episcopal church. The choice of his profession was "his own act in taking advantage of circumstance." The source of his first strong ambition in life was "the desire to excel and the discovery of his ability to excel." He accounts his contact with men in active life as the most forcible influence in the early part of his career. "To learn to think clearly, to investigate thoroughly, to talk fluently and with confidence, and always to do one's duty as well as possible, and something more than the task set," is the aim he would set before young people. The doing of something more than one's allotted duty he regards as one of the most important secrets of success.

He was married to Letitia V. Robinson in October, 1884. They have three children living in 1905.