Santa
Clara County
Biographies
JEREMIAH O’CONNELL
The present road master of the San Jose
district of the coast division of the Southern Pacific Railroad has charge of
one hundred and seventy miles of track and employs twenty-three foremen. Though
comparatively young in years he is old in railroad experience, for the entire
twenty-four years of his active business life have been identified with some
branch or other of railroading. Jeremiah O’Connell stands high in his line of
occupation, for he has done thoroughly and well what has been required of him,
and has mastered with keen intuition and unsparing industry, an enormously
responsible and important position. Mr. O’Connell built up his constitution on
a farm, and there learned the practical, useful lessons, which have materially
aided his progress in the railroad world. He comes of old southern stock and
inherits his liking for life along the rails. Born in Vicksburg, Old Virginia,
April 23, 1861, he was ten years old when his father, Jeremiah, took his family
to Nodaway county, Mo., and his education was received in the common schools of
the Missouri community. Jeremiah O’Connell was born in Ireland, and after
immigrating to America engaged in railroading in Virginia, in Missouri turning his
attention to farming in Nodaway county. The old home
established in 1871 is still occupied by his wife, who was formerly Catherine Kinealy, and who reared six of her seven sons, Jeremiah,
Jr., being the eldest of all.
Mr. O’Connell left the old Nodaway county
farm in 1880 and began working in the track department of the Kansas City, St.
Joe & Burlington Railroad, where he remained three years. In 1883 he came
to Colorado in the employ of the Denver & Rio Grande, with headquarters at
El Moro, three months later becoming foreman at Huerfano, and nine months later
foreman at El Moro. Eighteen months later he was made foreman of an extra gang
of men, and a year and a half afterward was conductor of the work train between
Denver, Trinidad, and Salida. In 1889 Mr. O’Connell
was transferred to the Rio Grande & Western Railroad as foreman and
conductor of a work train, making his headquarters at Salt Lake City for a year
and a half. He then became foreman of construction and superintended the laying
of the third rail between Grand Junction and Ogden, afterward building the
Thistle branch, eighty-eight miles long, and the Eureka branch, fifty miles
long. His next field of railroad activity was in the state of Oregon, where he
constructed the line between Astoria and Portland, but the railroad company
failed and he became conductor of the excursion train from Young’s Bay to
Seaside, a distance of eighteen miles. In 1892 he came to San Francisco, and
January 6, 1893, entered the employ of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company as
foreman at that point, and almost immediately was made foreman of an extra gang
of men. For seven years he was foreman of gangs at Pajaro,
and in 1902 was appointed to his present position as road master of the San
Jose district of the Southern Pacific Railroad.
Mr. O’Connell is a member of the
National Association of Roadmasters, taking an
important part in its deliberations and organization. In politics he is a
Republican, but his wandering life has never permitted more than passive
interest in party undertakings. In Watsonville, this state, he married Mary
Daley, and of the union six children have been born: Jeremiah,
Katie, Eugene, Josephine, William and Cecil. Mr. O’Connell is a
straightforward, strong, and manly fellow, liberal, enterprising, and popular
with his superiors and employes. He is affable and
approachable, and notwithstanding many years of controlling others, is
singularly free from the dominating spirit which often belongs to those
exercising authority.
Transcribed By: Cecelia M. Setty.
Source: History of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast
Counties, California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A. M., Pages 1320-1321. The
Chapman Publishing Co., Chicago, 1904.
© 2016 Cecelia M. Setty.