San Francisco County
Biographies
COLONEL
FREDERICK JAMES AMWEG
Colonel Frederick James Amweg has been accorded an important and extensive private practice as a consulting engineer and manager of construction in San Francisco during the past twenty-eight years and has long enjoyed a position of leadership among the representative of the civil engineering profession on the Pacific coast. A native of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, he was born May 9, 1856, his parents being John M. and Margaret H. (Fenn) Amweg. The father was captain of Company I, One hundred and Twenty-second Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, during the Civil war, and on the maternal side Colonel Frederick J. Amweg is descended from Revoluntionary ancestry. His great-great-grandfather, Theophilus Fenn, was an officer in the American colonial forces under General Wolfe during the Canadian campaign in the French and Indian wars. He is also a line descendant of Hon. Theodore Sedgwick, an American Federalist political leader and jurist, who also served in the Revolutionary war as United States senator and as justice of the Massachusetts supreme court, sitting upon the bench from 1802 until 1813. Colonel Amweg is also a nephew of General John Sedgwick, who was killed at the battle of Spottsylvania Courthouse in the Civil war.
In the acquirement of an education Colonel Amweg attended public and private schools of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, being graduated from the Lancaster high school in 1873. He then entered the Polytechnic College of Pennsylvania, from which he was graduated in 1876 with the degree of Civil Engineer. Soon afterward he joined the surveying staff of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company and was thus engaged for nine years, acting during the latter part of that period as assistant engineer of bridges and buildings and also having charge of the inspection over the entire line. The city of Philadelphia engaged him to design the cantilever bridge over the Schuylkill river on the line of Market street and superintend its construction, and thus his work increased in volume and importance. From 1887 until 1899 he was engaged in engineering and construction work in the east and had active supervision of the erection of a large number of structures of both public and private nature. During this period he was also chief engineer of the City Avenue and Germantown Bridge Company of Philadelphia and superintended the erection of the City avenue bridge over the Schuylkill river and at the same time was chief engineer of the new Radford bridge at Radford, Virginia, in charge of its erection.
In 1899 the scene of his activities was changed, for in that year Colonel Amweg went to Honolulu as chief engineer in charge of the building and installing of the electric street railroad in that city, including the construction of all necessary buildings—car-barns, power-houses, etc.—at a cost of nearly two million dollars. While on the island he also erected a number of school-houses, office buildings, warehouses and wharves.
In October, 1903, Colonel Amweg came to San Francisco and entered upon the private practice of his profession, in which he has since been active, erecting here a large number of important public and private buildings. At the present time Colonel Amweg is engaged as chief engineer in the development of a large terminal on San Francisco bay for the Mission Rock Terminal Company. He has also acted as consulting engineer for various arbitration committees and the prominence and importance of his work attests his high standing in his chosen profession.
On the 10th of October, 1883, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Colonel Amweg was married to Miss Blanche Estelle Parsons and their children are Blanche Ethel and Frederick James. The family residence is at 214 Elm street, San Mateo, California.
F. J. Amweg is chief of engineers of the National Guard of California, with the rank of colonel, and is a member of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion and the Sons of the American Revolution. His name is also on the membership rolls of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Association of Engineers, the Society of American Military Engineers and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has a wide acquaintance in Masonic circles, belonging to the Corinthian Lodge of Masons in Pennsylvania; Oriental Chapter, No. 183, R. A. M., of Philadelphia; to Golden Gate Commandery, K. T., of San Francisco, and Islam Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S., of San Francisco. He attained the fourteenth degree of the Scottish Rite in the Lodge of Perfection; the sixteenth degree in De Joinville Council; the eighteenth degree in Kilwinning Chapter of the Rose Croix; and the thirty-second degree in Philadelphia Consistory, all of Pennsylvania. Colonel Amweg, moreover, is among the valued members of the Commonwealth Club and the Public Spirit Club of San Francisco and has long enjoyed an enviable reputation as one of the prominent and highly respected citizens here.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Source: Byington, Lewis Francis, “History of
San Francisco 3 Vols”, S. J. Clarke Publishing Co.,
Chicago, 1931. Vol. 2 Pages 204-207.
© 2007 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
GOLDEN NUGGET'S SAN
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