Thomas J. Cram

Cram served as general superintendent for harbor works on Lake Michigan and the construction of roads in Wisconsin Territory.

He served under Major General Zachary Taylor in the Army of Occupation during the Mexican-American War and conducted coastal and river surveys in Texas.

[3] Cram worked as an assistant engineer for the railroad industry in Maryland and Pennsylvania for two years and returned to United States Army service as a captain in 1838.

[7] In 1840, Cram and Douglass Houghton led the boundary survey team up the Menominee River to its source at Brule Lake.

The construction of a dam was selected and work began on it until it was interrupted by the outbreak of the Mexican-American War in 1846.

[13] In 1845, Cram served as chief topographical engineer in the Army of Occupation under Major General Zachary Taylor during the Mexican-American War.

He conducted systematic topographic surveys of the Nueces River, the Laguna de la Madre, and Aransas Bay.

[14] From 1847 to 1855, he worked as an assistant in the United States Coast Survey[2] and had the responsibility for the New England region.

[2] He led survey teams on expeditions through the Oregon and Washington Territories and worked to determine the feasibility of a water route to the Pacific Ocean through Central America.