Sacramento County
Biographies
LELAND STANFORD
Famous among the most inspiring examples
of American citizenship, the busy and fruitful life of Leland Stanford is
instructive and highly suggestive to the youth, not only of our own country,
but of the entire world. A native of the great Empire state, he became, as one
of the founders and developers of the Pacific commonwealth, one of the most remarkable
men America has ever produced, and from the time of his boyhood in the ‘20s to
his death in the ‘90s, the story of his ascending career, in which almost
insuperable obstacles were again and again overcome, is of absorbing interest.
He was born at Watervliet, N. Y., eight miles from
Albany, on March 9, 1824, and descended from English stock, reenforced,
on his father’s side, by the best of Irish blood. His father, Josiah Stanford,
a native of Massachusetts, had been taken to New York by his parents when he
was four years of age; and he grew up to marry a Miss Philips, whose parents
had removed from Massachusetts to Vermont, and from Vermont to New York state.
Josiah Stanford lived for many years on a farm known as Elm Grove, on the
Albany road leading out to Schenectady, and was highly esteemed as an
intelligent, industrious and progressive farmer, who had built a portion of the
turnpike between Albany and Schenectady, constructed roads and bridges in his
neighborhood, was an alert systematic business man and a decidedly
public-spirited citizen, and was an early and enthusiastic advocate of the
construction of the Erie canal.
In 1825, the New York legislature granted a charter
for a railroad between Albany and Schenectady, and when it came to building the
road, Josiah Stanford was chosen as one of the principal contractors. A
railroad was an attractive novelty in those days, and the survey of this road
brought it so close to the home of the Stanfords that
Leland passed his holidays in eagerly watching the work, and even at that early
age acquired a knowledge of railroad construction that
proved of service to him in later years. The conversation, too, of the visitors
to Josiah Stanford’s home, was elevating, instructive and inspiring. These
visitors were men of affairs engaged in the construction of large works, and
they were alive to the great possibilities through future transportation
routes, and were not a whit daunted by the magnitude of any project. Among the
subjects discussed with vigor by these virile and far-seeing men was the
project of a railroad to Oregon; and “young as he was when the question was
first agitated,” says one writer, “Leland Stanford took a lively interest in
the measure. Among its chief advocates at that early day was Mr. Whitney, one
of the engineers in the construction of the Mohawk & Hudson River Railway.
On one occasion, when Whitney passed the night at Elm Grove, Leland being then
thirteen years of age, the conversation ran largely on this overland railway
project, and the effect upon the mind of such a boy may be readily imagined.
The remembrance of that night’s discussion between Whitney and his father never
left him, but bore the grandest fruits.” This engineer was undoubtedly the
celebrated Asa Whitney, from 1830 to 1839, assistant
superintendent, and then superintendent, of the Mohawk & Hudson Railroad,
later canal commissioner of New York state, and finally, as a world renowned
maker of carwheels, also, like Stanford, a university
benefactor.
Leland Stanford received the education of
the farmer boy and as a result he inherited both good physical and mental
qualities, and was reared in a home where there was no idler, where there was
little luxury but no want, where labor was honored, and each had his task
appointed for him to do. He worked on the farm with his father and his
brothers, rising as early as five o’clock of a winter morning. He attended the
common schools until he was twelve years of age, and then, for three years,
received private instruction at home. After that, he assisted his father in
carrying out a large contract for the delivery of wood. This was really his
first business venture for he was in a manner a partner in the enterprise, and
received a share of the profits, which he used to pay his tuition at an academy
in Clinton, New York.
Having determined to study law, young Stanford entered
the office of Messrs. Wheaton, Doolittle & Hadley, at Albany, and after
three years with the law-tomes, was admitted to the bar of New York state. By
this time, he had been drawn toward the west, and after visiting various places
he finally selected Port Washington, Wisconsin, as best suited to his purpose.
There in 1848 he established himself in the practice of law. The town was then
considered by many the port of the Lake region, having a most promising future,
and Mr. Stanford’s success as a lawyer there, with a lucrative practice and an
enviable standing in the community, appeared to emphasize the prospects of
prosperity for everyone. The first year in which he hung out his shingle, he
earned one thousand two hundred sixty dollars, and for that time, such an
income was considered good.
In
1850 he paid a visit to Albany, and while there married Miss Jane Lathrop, the
daughter of Dyer Lathrop, a merchant of Albany, whose family were among the
earliest and most respected settlers in that city He was born at Bozrah (now called Bozrahville),
Connecticut and accompanied his parents on their removal to New York, when he
was about seven years of age. He was noted for his good deeds, expressive of
human kindness, and was privileged to be one of the founders in Albany of the
Orphan Asylum, and was treasurer of that institution and director at the time
of his death.
Mr. Stanford returned to Port Washington
with his wife and continued the practice of his profession at that place until
1852, when misfortune happened to him which changed the course of his life, and
proved to be a blessing in disguise. This was the total destruction by fire of
his office with all of its valuable contents, including his law library, and
for the moment it seemed irreparable. Tidings of the discovery of gold in
California, however, reached the east about that time and occasioned great
excitement, so much so that five of Josiah Stanford’s sons set out for the promised land. The destruction of his office at Port
Washington determined Leland Stanford’s action in following them. He closed out
his affairs in Wisconsin, and took his wife to Albany, but she was unable to
persuade her father to let her accompany her husband and share with him the
hardships of life in a new country—as a result of which she remained at her
father’s home for the next three years, attending with all the devotion of a
loving and sympathetic daughter to every want of her father through a long
illness, until his death in 1855.
Leland Stanford sailed from New York, made
the journey by way of Nicaragua, spent twelve days in
crossing the Isthmus and thirty-eight days on the entire trip. He arrived at
San Francisco, July 12, 1852, and visited his brothers, who were engaged in the
general merchandise business at Sacramento, and soon afterward entered for
himself on a mercantile career at Cold Springs, in Eldorado county.
The following spring, he opened a store at Michigan Bluffs, the central business
point of the Placer county mining district. This period of Mr. Stanford’s life
was passed among the privations, the hardships and the excitements of a typical
pioneer mining camp, the recollection of which never faded from his memory. Mr.
Stanford also engaged in mining operations and prospered to such an extent that
in 1855 he purchased the business of his brothers in Sacramento. The same year
he proceeded to the east and brought Mrs. Stanford to California, establishing
his home in Sacramento. In that city his mercantile house soon ranked among the
leading California concerns, in the management of which he developed an heretofore untried capacity for dealing with large
affairs.
It was also not long before Mr. Stanford’s
political life began. The republican party was
organized in California in 1856, and he, giving the movement his enthusiastic
support, became one of its founders on the coast, although at first he was not
on the popular side. At the next election, he was the republican candidate for
state treasurer, but was defeated, and in 1859, when he was candidate for
governor, he received only eleven thousand votes. In 1860, he was delegate at
large to the republican national convention, and was an earnest and influential
advocate of the nomination of Abraham Lincoln, with whom he formed a warm and
lasting friendship. As a result, at the request of President Lincoln, he
remained in Washington for several weeks after the inauguration. He enjoyed the
confidence of Lincoln, and the destined martyr consulted him as to the surest
methods of preserving the peace and loyalty of California, and maintaining its
adherence to the Union—then a large question filled with doubt, which caused
much anxiety to the president and his hard-working and alert advisers.
Leland Stanford was again made the
republican candidate for governor in 1861, and after a bold and vigorous
canvass he was elected, receiving fifty-six thousand thirty-six votes against
thirty-two thousand seven hundred fifty for his opponent, Mr. McConnell, the
administration democrat, and thirty thousand nine hundred forty-four for Mr. Conness, the Douglas democrat candidate. It was a critical
period in both state and national affairs when Leland Stanford was inaugurated
governor of California, but he was firm and politic, and prevented the outbreak
of any disturbance. During his term of office, the state militia was organized,
the evils of squatterism abated, a State Normal
School was established and the indebtedness of the state was reduced one-half.
If Leland Stanford had no other claim to remembrance, his services as war
governor of California would cause his fame to be handed down to future ages.
The part taken by Leland Stanford in the
construction of the Central Pacific Railroad is better known, however, than any
other portion of his varied and exceedingly active career. As has been
narrated, he had listened as a boy to conversations between his father and Mr.
Whitney as to the possibility of constructing a railroad to Oregon, and in
after years he kept well informed on the subject, collecting and preserving all
articles published on that theme which once came to his attention. During his
voyage to California with Mrs. Stanford, he said to her, when she was ill:
“Never mind, a time will come when I will build a railroad for you to return
home on.” He did not originate the idea of a Pacific railroad—he executed the
tremendous project. In 1860, he heard of the examination which Theodore D.
Judah, an engineer, had made of the Sierra Nevada mountains
in order to determine a practicable route for a railroad, and not long
afterwards he had a conversation with C. P. Huntington, a hardware merchant of
Sacramento, on the subject of a railroad from California to the east. Another
meeting was held, and a third, at which Mark Hopkins was present. The result of
these conferences was a determination to at least look further into the
feasibility of the project. Mr. Judah, energetic and intrepid, and firm in his
belief in the possibility of building such a railroad across the Sierra Nevada
mountains, was called into consultation, and as a result the information
furnished by him, and that obtained from others, it was determined to send out
Judah, with the necessary assistants, to make a preliminary survey, and a fund
was raised for that purpose. This was the beginning of the great corporation.
The men who started this might enterprise were all merchants of Sacramento,
except Judah, and they were primarily Leland Stanford, Collis P. Huntington,
Charles Crocker, mark Hopkins and James Bailey.
The physical difficulties were considered
by many engineers to be insurmountable; others thought that if the road could
be built at all, the cost would be so great that the necessary funds could
never be secured; and, therefore, great as were the physical difficulties, the
financial obstacles were none the less appalling. Incorporated in 1861, under
the general laws of the state of California as the Central Pacific Railroad
Company, the project was still in a condition giving little hope of success
until the passage by congress of an act of July 1, 1862, entitled “An act to
aid in the construction of a railroad and telegraph line from the Missouri
River to the Pacific Ocean, and to secure to the Government the use of the same
for postal, military and other purposes.” This act incorporated the Union
Pacific Railroad Company and granted to it, “for the purpose of aiding in the
construction of said railroad and telegraph line, and to receive the safe and
speedy transportation of mails, troops, munitions of war, and public stores
thereon, ‘every alternate section of public land, designated by odd numbers to
the amount of five alternate sections per mile on each side of said road’ not
sold, reserved or otherwise disposed of by the United States Government, and to
which a preemption or homestead claim may not have been attached, at the time
the line of said road is definitely fixed.” Mineral lands were exempted from
the operations of the act. The secretary of the treasury was authorized to issue
to the company, upon the completion and equipment of forty consecutive miles of
the railroad and telegraph, bonds of the United States, payable thirty years
after date, and bearing interest at the rate of six per cent per annum, to the
amount of $16,000 per mile, and at $32,000 and $48,000 per mile for certain
sections through the mountains. The bonds were to constitute a first mortgage
upon the property of the company.
The Central Pacific Railroad Company of
California was authorized to construct a railroad and telegraph line from the
Pacific coast, at or near San Francisco or the navigable waters of the
Sacramento river, to the eastern boundary of
California upon the same terms and conditions in all respects as the Union
Pacific Railroad Company. The Central Pacific Railroad Company was required to
complete fifty miles of its road within two years after filing assent to the
provisions of the act, and fifty miles annually thereafter, and was authorized,
after completing its road across California, to continue the construction of a
railroad and telegraph line through the territories of the United States to the
Missouri river, or until it met and connected with the Union Pacific Railroad.
By act of July 2, 1864, these provisions were materially amended, the time for
designating the general route, for filing the map of the same, and of building
the part of these roads first required to be constructed was extended one year;
the Central Pacific was required to complete annually twenty-five instead of
fifty miles, and the whole line up to the state line within four years. The
land granted was increased from five to ten alternate sections, within the
limits of twenty instead of ten miles on each side. It was provided that only
one-half of the compensation for services rendered the government should be
required to be applied to the payments of bonds issued by the government in aid
of the construction of the road. When a section of twenty, instead of forty
miles was completed, bonds might be issued to the company.
The provision for withholding a portion of
the bonds authorized by the act of July 1, 1862, until the completion of the
whole road, was repealed. Special provision was made for the issue of bonds in
advance of the completion of the sections in the regions of the
mountains—naturally the most difficult and the most costly part of the long
line. But the most important provision of the act was the one authorizing the
company, on the completion of each section of the road, to issue its own
first-mortgage bonds, to an amount not exceeding the bonds of the United States
and making the bonds of the United States subordinate to the bonds of the
company.
The work of construction was begun upon
the Central Pacific Railroad on January 8, 1863, when Leland Stanford, as
president of the company, turned the first shovelful of earth, and in May,
1869, the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific Railroad lines were united at
Promontory Point, where Leland Stanford drove the last spike in the line of
railroad connecting by rail the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans, and binding
indissolubly together the eastern and western sections of the country. With a
courage which never faltered, and an ability that rose equal to the
difficulties as they presented themselves, this quartet of wonderful
men,—Stanford, Huntington, Crocker, Hopkins,—persevered until they attained
success. It was a gigantic enterprise managed by men of remarkable ability, the
peculiar ability of one in a particular sphere of action, supplementing the
peculiar ability of another in another sphere, and all working in harmony for
the common purpose. From the beginning to the end, however, the master-mind and
the master-will were those of Leland Stanford. Upon the doubtful chances of
success, these men ventured the moderate fortunes they possessed. Leland
Stanford realized a colossal fortune, but with the attainment of great wealth,
his labors in no wise ceased. He continued to be the president of the company
until 1885, and during that time the management of this great corporation and
the connecting lines which it acquired kept him constantly employed. In
addition to the work of the railroad, Mr. Stanford also had the care and
direction of his extensive landed estates. His home was on the Palo Alto estate
of seven thousand two hundred acres, and he also owned the Gridley farm of
twenty thousand acres, and the great Vina ranch of
fifty-five thousand acres. These places he improved to such an extent that they
became among the most valuable and productive tracts in all
the world. Mr. Stanford thus came to be very much interested in the
development of trotting horses, an owned the famous “Electioneer,” sire of many
of the fastest horses in America, including “Sunol,”
whose record was 2:08 , and “Arion” with a two year
old record of 2:10 3/4, which record he held for seventeen years, and which
sold for $125,000.
The great sorrow of Mr. Stanford’s life
came in 1884, when his only child, Leland Stanford, Jr., died. He was a lad of
many attractive qualities and of great promise, and the idol of both his father
and his mother, but while traveling through Europe with his parents, he was
attacked with a virulent fever, and despite the best medical aid, he died in
Florence, Italy, on March 13, 1884, in the fifteenth year of his age. He passed
away in the flower of his youth, but his memory is perpetuated forever in the
noble institution of learning which bears his name. The Leland Stanford Junior
University is situated upon the Palo Alto estate, in Santa Clara county,
distant about thirty miles from San Francisco. On November 11, 1885, Leland
Stanford and his devoted wife, Jane Lathrop Stanford, united in founding and
endowing a university for both sexes to be called the Leland Stanford Junior
University, and to be located at Palo Alto. The estates granted for this
purpose included the Palo Alto farm, the Gridley farm and the Vina farm aggregating eighty-three thousand acres of land,
and the total endowment of the new university in land and money was estimated
to be twenty million dollars. The university has for many years been in
successful operation, and is surely destined to become more and more, one of
the foremost seats of learning in the world, being unrivaled in munificence of
endowment. Its doors were opened in October, 1891, to over five hundred
students, and for the current year there are five times that
number, despite the exaction of high standards, in attendance. From the
inception of the idea of founding the university, through every state of its
development and through every period of its operation, Mrs. Stanford was the
earnest, enthusiastic, never-failing, helpful friend, and to her was committed
the task, in part left uncompleted by her husband, of still further widening
the university’s influence and increasing its usefulness.
In 1885, Mr. Stanford was elected a member
of the United States senate, and took his seat on the 4th of March;
and he was reelected for the term ending March 3, 1897. His name will forever
be associated with the Land-Loan bill, which he originated and presented to the
senate; and his addresses on this measure have been quoted in works on
political economy in every language of civilization. The bill proposed, in
brief, that money should be issued upon land to half the amount of its value,
and for such loans the government was to receive an annual interest of two per
cent. Mr. Stanford frequently stated that if the measure were adopted it would,
in time, raise revenue enough to pay the entire
expenses of the government, and would thus take the tariff question entirely
out of politics. The high estimates formed of the value of Mr. Stanford’s
services as a senator are set forth in the appreciative addresses of his
associates in congress delivered upon the occasion of his memorial.
It is worthy of interest, in discussing
this one preeminent representative of the Stanford family in America, to recall
another Stanford, a distant relative and also a member of the English circle.
John Stanford, a clergyman, came to the United States in 1786, opened an
academy in New York city, interested himself
especially in charitable institutions, and originated the New York House of
Refuge, the first juvenile reformatory in America which separated children from
hardened criminals in the penitentiary. He was also one of the chief promoters
of the New York Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb. The first library of Bellevue
Hospital was suggested by him, and it is interesting, in the light of what Mr.
Stanford, in particular, did for the Stanford University Library, that this was
named in his honor the “Stanford Library Association of Bellevue Hospital.” By
request of the Common Council of New York in 1825 his portrait was painted by
Samuel F. B. Morse, of telegraph fame, and now hangs in the New York department
of charities.
Transcribed 1-21-10 Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source: Wooldridge, J.W. Major History
of the Sacramento Valley California, Vol. 2 Pages 10-17.
Pioneer Historical Publishing Co. Chicago 1931.
© 2010 Marilyn R. Pankey.