San Francisco County
Biographies
WILLIAM ERNEST BARRETT
BARRETT, WILLIAM ERNEST, Consulting Gas Engineer, New
York, N.Y., Los Angeles
and San Francisco, California, was
born in Nashville, Tennessee, February 16, 1870,
the son of Albert Read Barrett and Marie Louise
(Barnes) Barrett. He married Charlotte Josephine Ricker at Lawrence,
Massachusetts, October 13, 1893, and to
them there was born a daughter, Gretchen Crommelin
Barrett. He is descended of old American stock, his ancestors on both sides of
the family having been men of affairs in the days of the Revolution. One of
these, John Crommelin, of New York City, was one of
the original organizers of Trinity Parish, and his great grand-uncle, John
Barrett, gave his life to the Republic at the Battle f Lexington, Lewis Barnes,
his maternal great-grandfather, was a banker at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and
the owner of a line of ocean ships sailing between New York and France. B. F.
Barrett, his paternal grandfather, established the Barrett Roofing Company of Chicago.
Mr.
Barrett received his early education in public and private schools of Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, and also attended the first public manual
training school in the United States,
established by Lieutenant Robert Crawford, of the United States Navy. He
concluded his studies at the University
of Pennsylvania, graduating in the
class of 1889 with the degree of Mechanical Engineer,
Prior
to his graduation, Mr. Barrett determined to specialize in gas engineering and,
following the receipt of his degree, became Assistant
Engineer to James E. Leadley, of the Hanley & Leadley Construction Company, which had the contract for
building a water gas plant for the Philadelphia Gas Improvement Company. He
continued in this position for about eight months, resigning to become Assistant
Superintendent of the Globe Gas Light Company, of Philadelphia,
which was later merged with the United Gas Improvement Company of the same
city. Subsequently he became Cadet Engineer in the construction department of
the corporation and was then promoted to the position of Construction Engineer,
which he filled until 1893.
At
this time he went to Montgomery, Alabama,
as General Manager of the Montgomery Railway & Light Company, remaining
there for a year. During this time he bought about the consolidation of the two
competing companies, thus bringing the business down to an economical basis.
Returning
to Pennsylvania, in 1894, Mr. Barrett took the
management of the Lower Merion Gas Company, a subsidiary of the United Gas
Improvement Company covering the territory from Philadelphia
to Paoli, Pennsylvania.
After several years Mr. Barrett acquired all the electric properties in that
section, and in May 1902, merged these companies into the Merion & Radnor
Gas & Electric Company, retaining the management of the new concern.
While
a resident of Lower Merion
Township, Mr. Barrett, who is a
Republican in his political affiliations, was elected a member of the first
Board of Commissioners of the Township, serving from 1909 to March 1904. While
on the Board he designed and supervised the construction of the entire system
of drainage in the place, forty-four miles of sewers, and also was engaged in
other civic improvements.
In
January 1904, Mr. Barrett resigned the management of the corporation he had
organized and went to Scranton, Pennsylvania,
where he took charge of the gas department of the Scranton Gas & Water
Company, remaining in that capacity until 1906.
Upon
leaving Scranton, Mr. Barrett was appointed Chief
Consulting Gas Engineer for J. G. White & Company, of New
York, the largest engineering firm in the world. He
still retains this position and during the six years he has occupied it has
designed and constructed several notable plants in various parts of the United
States. Among others he built the entire gas
works at Moline, Illinois, which
supplies gas to the cities of Moline and Rock
Island. This was one of the most remarkable
engineering feats in the history of gas construction, he having completed in
seventy-eight days a plant having 3,000,000 per day capacity.
In
the early part of 1912, Mr. Barrett was commissioned by his company to engineer
the construction of a 12-inch natural gas pipe line 115 miles long, extending
from the midway oil fields of California to the city of Los
Angeles. In this work he occupied the unique position
of managing himself, he being General Manager and Consulting Engineer of the
Midway Gas Company, and also Assistant General Manager of the Southern
California Gas Company.
The
work in which Mr. Barrett is engaged in California
is one of the largest natural gas enterprises in the country and an industry of
great importance to its home State.
Mr.
Barrett, who is generally considered one of the leading experts of his
profession, is a member of the American Gas Institute, New York Electric
Society, Natural Gas Association of America, American Society of Electrical
Engineers-Associate, Illinois Gas and the Los Angeles Chamber of Mines and Oil.
His clubs are the Montana Club, Helena, Montana,
Engineers’ Club of Northeast Pennsylvania and the Los Angeles Athletic Club, of
Los Angeles.
Transcribed by Gloria (Wiegner) Lane.
Source: Press Reference
Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page 145,
International News Service, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles,
Boston, Atlanta. 1913.
© 2007 Gloria
Lane.
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San Francisco County
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