"[Thomas A Symington II was a] well-known insurance man and Confederate veteran. Mr. Thomas A. Symington, assistant manager of the local office of the Fidelity and Casualty Company, of New York, died [January 19, 1900] at his home, 1013 North Calvert street [of Baltimore].

Mr. Symington was born in Baltimore 58 years ago [...]. He was educated in private schools in Baltimore and in Connecticut. At the outbreak of the Civil War he entered the Confederate Army as ordnance sergeant in Gen. James Gearing's battalion and soon after was made a lieutenant on General Gearing's staff. He served through the war and surrendered at Appomattox. He was released on parole to go to his home and remain undisturbed until exchanged. He went to the home of his father, Thomas Symington, at Belair. Md.. where he was arrested by the Federal officer in command there and lodged in jail. Through certain influences at Washington he was released, with the understanding that he leave the country. He had a short time before refused to take the oath of allegiance because Gen. Kirby Smith was still in the field, and, therefore, would not admit that the war was over. He went to Europe, where he remained for a year.

Upon his return be engaged in the fertilizer and chemical manufacturing business with his brother, W. Stuart Symington. [We believe this was with the Davison, Symington and Company]. Afterward he became connected with the Fidelity and Casualty Company, of New York.

When the Fifth Maryland Regiment was organized he was made adjutant and shortly after the railroad riots was matte lieutenant-colonel of the regiment. His wife, who was a daughter of Mr. W. W. Spence, died several years ago. He Is survived by one married daughter - Mrs. Jesse B. Riggs - two unmarried daughters and two son."

Co-Founder [along with his younger brother William Stuart Symington I (b1839) ] of the Davison, Symington and Company (approximately 1855 ... see Excellent 1951 scanned book on Davison Chemical's history up until 1951: [HB000J][GDrive] ); Later on, this became known as the Davison Chemical Company in the late 1800s.

According to family tradition, the original Symington in America, James [Symington], arrived from Scotland in 1785. 1 He landed in Philadelphia, where he worked as a stonecutter. Aboard ship he had met Margaret Ogilvie, a young Scotswoman traveling alone. Her marital status at the time remains unclear. Either she was the widow of a man named William Ogilvie, or she was running away from an unhappy marriage with him. Divorce was hard to come by in Scotland in the eighteenth century. Margaret had left behind two children, apparently with her mother, and was pregnant with a third, [but] she completely captivated young James Symington, who was making his way co America from Ayrshire.

How Margaret paid for her passage to America is unknown. [...]. At some point she became acquainted with another passenger, Robert Morris, the wealthy Philadelphia banker and signer of the Declaration of Independence who was famed as the "financier of the Revolution." Morris invited her to join his household as housekeeper or governess. Her child, a daughter initially named Deborah Morris, was born in the Morris home, and when in 1787 her shipboard acquaintance persuaded her to marry him, she was given away by Morris. About a year after their marriage, James and Margaret Symington moved to a house on Brandywine Creek, near Wilmington, where James operated a mill for grinding flint. In 1800 they moved to Baltimore and James resumed the stonecutting trade. Apparently he did rather well. When he died in 1827, he left an estate of seventy-five thousand dollars, a substantial sum in the early nineteenth century.

James adopted Deborah, and he and Margaret eventually had two more daughters and three sons, one of whom was Thomas [Symington], born December 23, 1793, on Brandywine Creek. Thomas served as an apprentice to his father in the stonecutting trade, and then as a young man went to work for William Stuart, who had a stonecutting and marble business. Stuart, whose father had fought in the War of the Revolution, became lieutenant colonel of the U.S. Infantry defending Baltimore during the War of 1812, being credited, according to family legend, with "saving" Fort McHenry during the British naval bombardment the night of September 13, 1814, when he took over from the commandant, alleged to have been drunk. In addition to being a war hero, William Stuart was a successful businessman who was active in politics. He served several terms on the Baltimore city council and as a member of the Maryland House of Delegates. He had a short term as mayor of Baltimore, after which he became president of the Maryland Institute of Arts. His daughter, Angeline, whom Thomas Symington married in 1825, was obviously quite a catch.

[Thomas Symington's wife Angele passed when he was at the age of seventy-one.] He [then] married Mary Wilson, thirty-seven, whom he had met at the Episcopal Church, where she was the church organist; she bore him two children before he died in 1875 at the age of eighty-two.

Thomas Symington did well financially, making substantial sums in real estate, marble quarries, and chemicals and fertilizer. He furnished much of the marble for the 1850 addition to the capitol building in Washington. He provided the cornerstone of the Washington Monument as a gift. Unlike many others, including his son, he seems to have survived the Civil War financially intact. In 1862 he retired to a farm outside Baltimore, which he named " Indian Spring," managing his various business enterprises in addition to farming. When he died, he left an estate of one hundred thousand dollars in cash and what apparently was a substantial unrecorded balance that he divided among his children.