Thomas Morrison Carnegie, Sr.

Thomas Morrison Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland across theFirth of Fourth Bridge from Edinburgh Oct. 2. 1843 and immigrated to this country in 1848 with his mother, father and brother Andrew. Thomaswas first employed when but 16 years old in the telegraphic Dept. of the Pennsylvania Railroad Co., where his brother Andrew, who had been previously employed as an operator by Mr. Thomas A. Scott. Tom remianed at the Railroad until 1860 when he went into partnership with Andrew Kloman, Henry Phipps and others and formed the firm of Kloman and Phipps, operating the mill now known as the Twenty-ninth Street Works ofCarnegie, Phipps and Co. This firm afterwards united with the CyclopsIron Co. of which Andrew Carnegie and Thomas Miller were the principal stockholders under the firm name of The Union Works.

In 1865 the firm purchased the Cyclops Mill at 33rd St., and both concerns were consolidated under the title of Union Iron Mills. In 1871the first Lucy furnace was built and put in blast in 1872. This, with the Isabella Furnace build by other parties about the same time, marked the beginning of the new era in coke furnace practice which eventuated in the magnificent furnaces of the Edgar Thompson Stell Works, and in the increased production of coke furnaces all over the country. In 1873 with some other capitalists, they established the Edgar Thompson Steel Worksunder the firm name of Carnegie, McCandless and Co., Ltd, with Thomas M.Carnegie as chairman. The other manufacturing interests in which Mr.Carnegie, his brother, Andrew, and Mr. Phipps were concerned, including the Pittsburgh Bessemer Steel Works, were also consolidated under the title of Carnegie, Phipps and Co., Ltd. Mr Carnegie was one of the board managers.

Of Thomas Carnegie's traits of character, it was said "Mr. Carnegie was a man of most remarkable mental endowments of a different class from thoseof his brother, Andrew, who is better known, but in their business transactions they were the perfect complement of each other. He was a man of most extraordinary and exact memory, and a profound student of metaphysical subjects. As a student he was thoroughly versed in the various systems of logic, and had the best thought of Mills, Hamilton andother great thinkers at his fingers' ends. He had a remarkable judgementand fine reasoning power. His opinion on schemes of magnitude in the business world was sought after, and when any measure met with his approval it was almost invariably consumated. He preeminently a peacemaker, and always ready to unravel a tangled skein in business affairs, and in these he was quick and keen in his perceptions and perfectly just in his judgement. " No man was heard to say an unkind word of Thomas M. Carnegie. Though a large employer of labor, he had the confidence and respect of those connected with the various works in whichhe was interested.

Thomas met his wife, Lucy Coleman, through her father, William Coleman,who was in the coal business and did business with the Carnegie boys.They were married in June, 1866 and lived in Pittsburgh where their ninechildren, William, frank, Andrew II, Margaret, Thomas, George, Florence,Coleman, and Nancy were born.

In 1881 Thomas purchased the Dunginess estate on Cumberland Island froman ex-confederate general, W.G.M. Davis, as a gift to his wife andchildren. In just five years he died of pneumonia at age 43.

Source: "The Carnegies & Cumberland Island" by Nancy Carnegie Rockefeller.

cf.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_M._Carnegie