He then became an accounting clerk at the general office of the Pennsylvania Railroad at South 4th Street.

[1] He resigned on December 1, 1889, to work as the private secretary to Thomas Valentine Cooper, the collector of the Port of Philadelphia from 1889 to 1890.

[2][3] In 1906, he helped Philadelphia's port get an A-1 rating for "instituting reform programs and cost efficiency systems".

[2] Thomas died of a heart attack on June 14, 1907, at his summer home in Linwood, New Jersey.

He was interred in West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania.