Alameda
County
Biographies
JAMES
HARVEY STROBRIDGE
JAMES HARVEY STROBRIDGE.
A prominent and well-known railway builder of California is James Harvey
Strobridge, now retired from the active cares of life and enjoying relaxation
in his pleasant and comfortable home, about a mile from Haywards[sic],
Alameda county. The representative of an
old New England family, he was born April 23, 1827, in Albany, Vt., in which state his father, Phedrus Strobridge,
was also born. For more complete details
concerning the family refer to the Strobridge genealogy. Up to the time he was sixteen years old, Mr. Strobridge remained at home upon the paternal
farm and attended the public schools. He
then became dependent upon his own resources, and going to Boston, Mass., he
secured employment on the Boston & Fitchburg Railway in laying track,
after which he was engaged on the Vermont Central at Northfield, acting in the
capacity of foreman during the construction of the same. Returning to Massachusetts, he worked on the
Worcester & Nashua as foreman of the grading and construction, and
after the completion of that contract went to Connecticut, where he had a
two-mile contract on the Naugatuck Railway.
In January, 1849, he sailed on the ship Orpheus from New York City,
bound for California by way of Cape Horn, and arrived in San Francisco
July 8. He went at once to
Sacramento, his first employment being to cut hay along the Sacramento river, where he conducted a hay yard until the summer of
1850. He then engaged with
E. M. Pitcher in teaming to the mines, in the fall of the same year,
however, finding profit in mining at Placerville and Coon Hollow. In 1851, in partnership with
Mr. Pitcher, he located on the Rancho Del Paso, on Dry creek, there
raising grain and conducting a hotel for several years. Mr. Strobridge then went to Dutch Flat
and engaged as foreman on the Placer county canal, four years being consumed in
the construction of the same, after which, in the fall of 1863, he worked on
the San Francisco & San Jose Railroad, taking out Burnell
Heights, the largest excavation that had ever been made in the state at that
time. In the winter of 1864 he went to
work on the Central Pacific Railway, and also worked for Charles
Crocker & Co., in grading and laying track a
distance of fifteen miles out of Sacramento.
He then went to Newcastle and took charge of the construction of that
road until completed, the connection being made May 10, 1869. Following this he came to Haywards[sic]
and took a contract to build the Southern Pacific from Niles to Oakland, a
distance of thirty miles, after which he built the railway by contract from
Marysville to Sesmer, a distance of seventy
miles. He then contracted and built
twenty miles of railway from Gilroy to Tres Pinos; then from Gilroy to Pajara,
Monterey county, a distance of twenty miles; from
Lathrop to Tipton, one hundred and fifty miles in the San Joaquin valley. In the meantime he had purchased his ranch of
five hundred acres in the neighborhood of Haywards[sic],
and for about three years following his last contract he made his home in this
location. At the close of that period he
went to Yuma, Ariz., and upon the organization of the Pacific Improvement
Company he became its president, and remained in that position for twelve
years. Upon assuming that office he
immediately began a personal supervision of the building of the railroad across
Arizona and New Mexico, into Texas as far as Devils river,
a distance of about one thousand miles.
This work occupied his attention for about five years, and on his return
he stopped at Mojave and built the railroad to the Needles on the Colorado river, a distance of two hundred and fifty miles. He then took up the construction of the California &
Oregon Railway at Redding and built the railroad over the Siskiyou mountains to Ashland, Ore.
From Tracy he built south on the west side of the San Joaquin river, a
distance of two hundred miles, and was also large engaged in Los Angeles
county. He also built the Oakland Mole
for the Southern Pacific Railway. While
working on the Central Pacific Mr. Strobridge had fourteen thousand men
under his direction. An incident of note
in the career of Mr. Strobridge occurred while he was in the employ of the
Contract & Finance Company, when, under the demand of his employers to
distance the seven-mile record of the Union Pacific Railway Company, he laid
ten miles of track in one day, up a sixty-six foot grade, where some of the
irons had to be curved in the process, the track-laying record of the world for
one day.
In
1890 Mr. Strobridge gave up the work which had occupied his attention for
so many years and in which he had met with such gratifying success, impelled to
such a movement on account of his eyes, which were failing him. On December 6, 1860, he married Maria
Keating, a native of Ireland, whose death occurred in 1891. No children were born of this union, but they
adopted and reared five. In 1892 he
married Kate B. Moore, a native of San Francisco, and she died in October,
1895. August 26, 1896, he married Margaret
McLean, a native of Scotland, who came to the United States in 1894, and they
now make their home upon the ranch, engaged in general farming and fruit
raising on the two hundred acres left of the original purchase. In his political convictions Mr. Strobridge
is a stanch[sic] Republican, but has never cared for
official recognition on account of the busy life he has led. However, he has been quite active in
educational matters in the community, serving as school trustee, and while a
member of the board bringing about several important changes, among them an
increase of salary for the teachers, the completion of the new school building,
that was erected in the 70s.
Transcribed by Donna Toole.
ญญญญSource: History
of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast Counties,
California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A. M., Pages 739-740. The Chapman
Publishing Co., Chicago, 1904.
ฉ 2015 Donna Toole.
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