Samuel S. Montague

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Samuel Skerry Montague (born July 6, 1830 in Keene (New Hampshire) , † September 24, 1883 in Berryvale (today: Mount Shasta , California )) was - as the successor to Theodore D. Judah - chief chief engineer of the Central Pacific Railroad railway company (CPRR).

Life path

Completion of the transcontinental railway line between the Atlantic and Pacific. Photograph presented to the press of the solemn meeting of the Central Pacific Railroad and the Union Pacific Railroad on May 10, 1869 at the Promontory Summit in Utah .

Samuel S. Montague's parents were the tailor and later farmer Richard Montague and his wife Content Ward Skerry.

When Samuel was six years old, his family moved to Rockford, Illinois , where his father built a farm. There Samuel attended Rockford Classical School during the winter and helped out on his parents' farm during the summer. At the age of 20 he worked for a short time as a teacher, then for about a year as a shop assistant in a textile and haberdashery store. At the age of 22, he began in 1852 to work as a surveyor for the railroad company "Rock Island and Rockford Railroad". He later worked on the Peoria and Bureau Valley Railroad, then on the Rock Island and Peoria Railroad and finally on the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad. All of these railroad companies only existed for a short time before being bought and taken over by other railroad companies.

In 1859 Montague set out with three cronies to search for gold in Colorado near Pikes Peak ("Pikes Peak or Bust rush"); However, after a short time the group moved on to California via the California Trail , where they arrived in the fall of 1859.

It was there that Montague met the railway engineer Theodore Judah and worked for him on the construction of the Valley Railroad from Folsom (California) to Marysville (California) . From February 12, 1862, Montague assisted Judah, who had meanwhile become chief engineer of the Central Pacific Railroad, with the survey work in the Sierra Nevada . By the time Judah died in 1863, Montague had worked his way up to be his assistant engineer.

After Theodore Judah's death, Montague was named executive chief engineer of the Central Pacific Railroad in 1863. On March 31, 1868, he rose to the position of chief engineer. He was responsible for the construction of the western part - from Sacramento , California, to Promontory Summit , Utah - of the so-called First Transcontinental Railroad , which was to connect the Atlantic coast of the USA with its Pacific coast. Montague was a confidante of Leland Stanford , one of the "Big Four" who ran the Central Pacific Railroad.

Montague was assisted by fellow engineer Lewis M. Clement and track construction manager James Harvey Strobridge . Montague led the CPRR's track construction works to cross the Sierra Nevada over the Donner Pass , which involved thousands of Chinese workers.

In the famous "Golden Spike" photo from 1869, in which a Central Pacific locomotive coming from the west and a Union Pacific locomotive coming from the east are standing "nose to nose" near Promontory, Utah, are the two men who are in In the center of the picture, Samuel S. Montague, chief engineer of the CPRR, and Grenville M. Dodge , chief engineer of the Union Pacific Railroad shake hands .

Montague was involved as chief engineer in the construction of numerous other railroad lines in California.

Montague married Louisa Adams Reddington on February 13, 1868 in San Francisco , California. She was a sister of Charles H. Reddington, an employee of Southern Pacific Transportation , which later took over the Central Pacific Railroad. Samuel and Louisa had four children, namely Henry Bradford Montague, Carrie Dana Montague, Samuel Skerry Montague Jr. (born February 5, 1875 in Oakland), and Mercy Low Montague. The family lived in Oakland, California. Samuel Montague died on September 24, 1883 at the age of 63 and was buried in Oakland.

swell

  • John D. Galloway (1869-1943), The First Transcontinental Railroad, Dorset Press, New York 1989, Chapter 4, "The Builders of the Central Pacific Railroad," http://cprr.org/Museum/Galloway4.html#Montague  ; accessed on January 21, 2020
  • George William Montague (1836–?) / William Lewis Montague (1831–1908) (eds.), “History and genealogy of the Montague family of America, descended from Richard Montague of Hadley, Mass., And Peter Montague of Lancaster Co. , Va., With genealogical notes of other families by name of Montague, "Amherst, Mass., Press of JE Williams, 1886, https://archive.org/details/historygenealogy00mont/  ; there on p. 487 there is a portrait of Samuel S. Montague; accessed on January 25, 2020

Web links

  • Samuel S. Montague, "Report of the Chief Engineer Upon Recent Surveys, Progress of Construction, and an Approximate Estimate of Receipts of the Central Pacific Railroad of California, October 8th, 1864", Central Pacific Railroad Company, 1864, https: // archive.org/details/reportchiefengi00montgoog/page/n6  ; accessed on January 25, 2020
personal data
SURNAME Montague, Samuel S.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Montague, Samuel Skerry
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American railroad engineer
DATE OF BIRTH July 6, 1830
PLACE OF BIRTH Keene, New Hampshire
DATE OF DEATH September 24, 1883
Place of death Berryvale (now: Mount Shasta, California)