James Harvey Strobridge

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James Harvey "Stro" Strobridge (born April 21, 1827 in Albany (Vermont) ; † July 27, 1921 in Hayward (California) ) was superintendent of construction at the Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR) in the construction of the first transcontinental USA railroad line . Previously, Strobridge had been a prospector during the California Gold Rush from 1848 to 1854.

Life path

Strobridge was born in 1827 on a Vermont farm to Phedrus Strobridge and his wife Margaret ("Peggy") Laird Strobridge.

He left home at the age of 16 and worked as a track worker for the Boston and Fitchburg Railroad in Massachusetts , and later for the Naugatuck Railroad in Connecticut .

In 1849, when he was 22, he went to California, Placer County in the Sierra Nevada , to prospect for gold. At times he also tried his hand at being a farmer and managing a hotel. He was a foreman at a gold mine in which gold was being mined in hydraulic mining when Charles Crocker's attention was drawn to him. This later belonged - together with Leland Stanford , Mark Hopkins and Collis P. Huntington - to the "Big Four" ("big four"), so the four most important financiers of the Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR) founded in 1861, the of built the western part of the first transcontinental railroad connection in the USA leading along the Pacific coast to Utah .

Strobridge married Hannah Maria Strobridge, b. Keating (1843–4 October 1891). The couple had no biological children but adopted six children from three different families. One of them was Edward Keating Strobridge, who in adulthood managed his father's farm in Hayward, California.

The CPRR track construction officially began in 1863, the year that the engineer Theodore D. Judah , the driving force behind the Central Pacific Railroad, died. Theodore D. Judah's successor as chief engineer of the CPRR was Samuel S. Montague . As superintendent of construction (site manager) Strobridge was probably subordinate to the chief engineer of the CPRR, ie Samuel S. Montague. According to another source, Strobridge is said to have been directly subordinate to Charles Crocker . Strobridge was in charge of track construction in the Sierra Nevada for five years; he was responsible for a group of up to 12,000 men on the line, which consisted mainly of Chinese immigrants to California. James Harvey Strobridge and his wife Hannah Maria lived temporarily in a freight car on the CPRR railroad construction site. Strobridge lost the sight in his right eye in a blasting accident while the road was being built at Bloomer Cut.

Strobridge was considered a tough, quick-tempered and sometimes violent superior.

The route network of the Central Pacific Railroad was connected to the Union Pacific Railroad (UP) on May 10, 1869 at the Promontory Summit in Utah to form the first transcontinental railroad in the USA. Hannah Maria Strobridge had performed one of the last hammer blows on May 10, 1869 at the Promontory Summit in Utah , with which the golden nail was hammered into the threshold at which the line closure of the transcontinental Central Pacific Railroad was completed.

Hannah Maria Strobridge died in 1891 at the age of only 48. James Harvey Strobridge remarried. In total, Strobridge was widowed twice and married three times; his three wives were: Hannah Maria Keating (1843 - October 4, 1891; aged 48), Kate Moore (1855 - December 19, 1895; aged 40), and Marguerite or Margaret McLean ( * 1843; † November 20, 1940; at the age of 83).

In 1869, Strobridge settled in Hayward, built a house on Redwood Road and bought 500 acres (about 202 hectares) of land in the Castro Valley . He planted apricot and pear tree plantations and kept cattle in the vicinity of his new home. His adopted son Edward Keating Strobridge took care of the management of the farm, James Harvey Strobridge continued to work for the Central Pacific Railroad Company. Among other things, he led the construction of a branch line between Niles - now a district of Fremont (California) - and Oakland .

Strobridge died in Hayward in 1921 at the age of 94.

swell

  • John Debo Galloway, CE, [1869-1943], "The First Transcontinental Railroad," Chapter 4: "The Builders of the Central Pacific Railroad," pp. 52-93, Dorset Press, New York 1989, http://cprr.org/Museum/Galloway4.html  ; accessed on March 1, 2020
  • Edson T. Strobridge, "Our First Transcontinental Railroad and The Last Gold Spikes at Promontory, Utah, May 10, 1869". By Edson T. Strobridge, San Luis Obispo, California, Biographer of James Harvey Strobridge, Superintendent of Construction, Central Pacific Railroad, © November 17, 2005, Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR) Photographic History Museum, http://cprr.org/ Museum / Last_Spikes_ET_Strobridge.html  ; accessed on March 1, 2020

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ According to Find-A-Grave, memorial ID: 17357327, "James Harvey Strobridge," it was not until ten years later, on April 1, 18 3 , born seven; https://de.findagrave.com/memorial/17357327/james-harvey-strobridge  ; accessed on March 1, 2020
  2. ↑ bushong.net, "Biographies of the Leaders of the Central Pacific Rail Road Company"; https://web.archive.org/web/20020507012747/http://www.bushong.net/dawn/about/college/ids100/biographies.shtml  ; accessed on March 1, 2020
  3. ↑ Lan Dong (Ed.), "25 Events that Shaped Asian American History: An Encyclopedia of the American Mosaic," Greenwood, an imprint of ABC-Clio, LLC, Santa Barbara, California, 2019, p. 39: "James Harvey Strobridge was superintendent of construction for the Central Pacific and reported directly to one of the Big Four investors, Charles Crocker. "; accessed on March 1, 2020
  4. ↑ John Debo Galloway [1869-1943], "The First Transcontinental Railroad", Dorset Press, New York 1989, Chapter 4, pp. 52-93, "The Builders of the Central Pacific Railroad", http://cprr.org /Museum/Galloway4.html  ; accessed on March 1, 2020
  5. ↑ John Debo Galloway [1869-1943], "The First Transcontinental Railroad", Dorset Press, New York 1989, Chapter 4, pp. 52-93, "The Builders of the Central Pacific Railroad", http://cprr.org /Museum/Galloway4.html  ; accessed on March 2, 2020; see also: Lan Dong (ed.), "25 Events that Shaped Asian American History: An Encyclopedia of the American Mosaic", Greenwood, an imprint of ABC-Clio, LLC, Santa Barbara, California, 2019, p. 39, https : //books.google.de/books? id = qPaKDwAAQBAJ & pg = PA39 & lpg = PA39  ; accessed on March 2, 2020; see also: "Building the Central Pacific Railroad - Strobridge Railroad Correspondence during the 1880's", "James Harvey Strobridge", September 16, 2017, https://buildingtherailroad.com/2017/09/16/james-harvey-strobridge/  ; accessed on March 2, 2020
  6. ↑ Edson T. Strobridge, "Our First Transcontinental Railroad and The Last Gold Spike at Promontory, Utah, May 10, 1869," By Edson T. Strobridge, San Luis Obispo, California, biographer of James Harvey Strobridge, Superintendent of Construction, Central Pacific Railroad, © November 17, 2005, Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR) Photographic History Museum, http://cprr.org/Museum/Last_Spikes_ET_Strobridge.html  ; accessed on March 1, 2020
  7. ↑ Robert Phelps, “Early Hayward”, The Hayward Area Historical Society, p. 52, (with portrait photo of James Harvey Strobridge), https://books.google.de/books?id=LuBoPyobIGAC&pg=PA52&lpg=PA52  ; accessed on March 1, 2020
personal data
SURNAME Strobridge, James Harvey
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Strobridge, Stro (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION US railroad construction manager
DATE OF BIRTH April 21, 1827
PLACE OF BIRTH Albany (Vermont)
DATE OF DEATH July 27, 1921
Place of death Hayward (California)