El
Dorado County
Biographies
HENRY LAHIFF
One
of the most competent and skilled surveyors and engineers of the Mother Lode
country and of the Sacramento Valley is Henry Lahiff,
who follows his profession at El Dorado and is now serving as engineer and
surveyor of El Dorado County. He has had
broad experience in his profession, and has successfully filled numerous
difficult and important assignments. He
is popular in the county of his residence, and has won the admiration and respect
of all with whom he has come in contact during his active career.
Henry
Lahiff was born in County Galway, Ireland, April 24,
1868, a son of Daniel C. and Mary (St. George) Lahiff,
both of whom are now deceased. He was
educated in public and private schools in Ireland, and attended college for a
time, leaving his studies, however, to join the British Army, in which he spent
three years. He was engaged in foreign service as a soldier in the Connaught Rangers, after
which he returned to Ireland, where he has studied for the survey and
engineering profession under his uncle, William St. George.
In
1888 Mr. Lahiff went to Bisbee, Arizona, where he was
employed in his profession by the Copper Queen Mining Company. Later he went to San Francisco, then to
various cities from Vancouver, British Columbia, to San Diego, California, and
to Idaho. In 1892 he was with the
Thompson Bridge Company of San Francisco.
For four years he was employed on the construction of the large wharf
for the Southern Pacific Railroad Company at Santa Monica, California, and he
was the engineer in charge of the reconstruction of the Sutro
Baths at San Francisco. He was also with
the Southern Pacific Railroad in the reconstruction of the train ferries at
Port Costa. Next he came to the Mother
Lode district of California, and here was employed by some of the largest and
most important mining companies. He is
considered an authority on engineering work, and his services have always been
in constant demand. For the last twelve
years, Mr. Lahiff has held the office of surveyor and
engineers of El Dorado County, California, and has discharged the duties of
this position to the utmost satisfaction of the voters. He also engages in private work along the
line of his profession and owing to his knowledge and experience has
constructed many roads and bridges in the mountains under the most difficult
conditions, and with limited resources.
Mr. Lahiff is a Democrat in his political
affiliation, and his religious faith is that of the Roman Catholic Church.
Mr.
Lahiff married Miss Marie C. Renaud,
a native daughter, whose father came to California as a pioneer in 1852. Mr. and Mrs. Lahiff
have three children, namely: Marie C.,
now the wife of Leo J. McKenna; Harry C., also an engineer; and Margaret A.,
who is a pupil in the Placerville high school.
Transcribed by
Gerald Iaquinta.
Source:
Wooldridge, J.W.Major History of Sacramento Valley
California, Vol. 2 Pages 415-416. Pioneer Historical
Publishing Co. Chicago 1931.
© 2010
Gerald Iaquinta.
Golden Nugget Library's El Dorado County Biographies