Born in New York, the youngest of the 11 children of Frederick & Sophie. He became a prominent chemist & mining engineer, registering several patents for processes concerned with extraction of metals from ore.. This is an extract from a local paper, supplied by the ‘Vineyard Gazette’ Librarian:
Francis M. Simonds Dies, N. Y. Mining Engineer, stricken at Atlanta on visit;
ATLANTA, Nov. 16 (AP). Dr. Francis M. Simonds, New York mining engineer, died in an Atlanta hospital today after a brief illness. He was a past president of the Engineer Alumni Association of Columbia University and a leader in the American Institute of Mining Engineers. He was seventy-three years old.
Dr. Simonds came south last week to visit a friend, Nelson Severinghaus, in Lithonia. He became ill Sunday and was taken to the hospital yesterday. He will be returned to New York tomorrow.
Active in his profession for many years in New York, Dr. Simonds also was associated for a time with the Piedmont Corporation on pyrite, and crushed stone operations in north Georgia.
Surviving are two daughters, Mrs. John C. B. Moore, of New York, and Mrs. Daniel V. Thompson, of London, England. A son, Francis M. Simonds, Jr., of New York; a sister, Mrs. B. McE. Whitlock, of New York, and two brothers, Charles H. Simonds, of New York, and Frederick W. Simonds, of Reading, England.
From the Vineyard Gazette edition of November 24, 1939.
Francis M. Simonds New York mining engineer, died in Atlanta, Ga., Nov. 16, age 73. He was the father in law of Mrs. Francis M. Simonds of New York, the former Marion Carey Dinsmore, daughter of Mrs. William B. Dinsmore of New York and Edgartown, and the father of Mrs. John C. B. Moore of New York, Menemsha summer residents. He was a past president of the Engineer Alumni Association of Columbia University and leader in the American Institute of Mining Engineers.