Theodore judah map

American businessman

Theodore Judah
T.D. Judah, c. , age 36
Born	Theodore Dehone Judah ()March 4, Bridgeport, Connecticut, U.S.
Died	November 2, () (aged&#;37) New York City, U.S.
Education	Rensselaer Institute in
Occupation	Civil engineer
Employer	Central Pacific Railroad
Known&#;for	railroad pioneer
Title	Chief Engineer, CPRR
Spouse	Anna Pierce &#; (m.&#;)&#;

Theodore Dehone Judah (March 4, – November 2, ) was an American civil engineer who was a central figure in the original promotion, establishment, and design of the First transcontinental railroad.

He found investors for what became the Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR). As chief engineer, he performed much of the route survey work to determine the best alignment for the railroad over the Sierra Nevada, which was completed six years after his death.

Early life and education

Theodore Judah was born in (perhaps ^[1]) in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the son of Mary (Reece) and The Rev.

Henry Raymond Judah, an Episcopal clergyman.^[2] After his family moved to Troy, New York, Judah attended the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, then called the Rensselaer Institute in for a term^[3] and developed at a young age a passion for engineering and railroads.^[4]

At age 23, Judah married Anna Pierce () on May 10, Theirs was the first wedding in the then-new St James Episcopal Church of Greenfield, Massachusetts.^[5]

Career

After studying briefly at Rensselaer,^[3] Judah went to work on a number of railroads in the Northeast, including engineering for the Lewiston Railroad down the Niagara Gorge.

He was elected member of the American Society of Civil Engineers in May ; at that time there were fewer than civil engineers in the United States.^[6] Judah was hired in at age 28, by Colonel Charles Lincoln Wilson, as the Chief Engineer for the Sacramento Valley Railroad in California. He and his wife Anna sailed to Nicaragua, crossed over to the Pacific, and caught a steamer to San Francisco.

Under his charge, Sacramento Valley became in February the first common carrier railroad built west of the Mississippi River.^[7] Later, he was chief engineer of the California Central Railroad, incorporated ,^[8] and the San Francisco and Sacramento Railroad organized in ^[9]

Pacific railroad surveys

In January in Washington DC, Judah published "A practical plan for building The Pacific Railroad", in which he outlined the general plan and argued for the need to do a detailed survey of a specific selected route for the railroad, not a general reconnaissance of several possible routes that had been done earlier.^[10]

Nominated in the California Pacific Railroad Convention in San Francisco, Judah was sent to Washington DC to lobby in general for the Pacific Railroad.

Congress was distracted by the trouble of pre-Civil War America and showed little interest. He returned noting that he had to find a specific practical route and some private financial backing to do a detailed engineering survey.

In the fall of , Charles Marsh, surveyor, civil engineer and water company owner, met with Judah, who had recently built the Sacramento Valley Railroad from Sacramento to Folsom, California.

Marsh, who had already surveyed a potential railroad route between Sacramento and Nevada City, California, a decade earlier, went with Judah into the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

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There they examined the Henness Pass Turnpike Company’s route (Marsh was a founding director of that company). They measured elevations and distances, and discussed the possibility of a transcontinental railroad. Both were convinced that it could be done.^{[12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]}

In November , Judah published "Central Pacific Railroad to California", in which he declared "the discovery of a practicable route from the city of Sacramento upon the divide between Bear River and the North Fork of the American, via Illinoistown (near Colfax), Dutch Flat, and Summit Valley (Donner Pass) to the Truckee River".

He advocated the chosen Dutch Flat-Donner Pass route as the most practical one with maximum grades of one hundred feet per mile and miles shorter than the route recommended in the government's reports.

Theodore dehone judah biography book: See also [ edit ]. By 18 he was a railroad surveyor, giving himself a practical education in technology not even two decades old. Login to collaborate or comment , or contact a profile manager, or ask our community of genealogists a question. Judah Plaque.

Much of the Sierra Nevada where the practical routes were located was double-ridged, meaning two summits separated by a valley, Donner Pass was not and thus was more suitable for a railroad. From Dutch Flat, the Pacific road would climb steadily up the ridge between the North Fork American and Bear Rivers to the Pass before winding down steadily following the Truckee River out of the mountains into the Great Basin of Nevada.

In December or early January , Marsh met with Theodore Judah and Dr. Daniel Strong in Strong’s drug store in Dutch Flat, California, to discuss the project, which they called the Central Pacific Railroad of California.^[20]

Judah's youthful interest in the general subject of a Pacific Railroad developed during this period into almost an obsession, his wife observing that

"Everything he did from the time he went to California to the day of his death was for the great continental Pacific railway.

Time, money, brains, strength, body, and soul were absorbed.

Theodore dehone judah biography children The rail line to Folsom cut a full day off of the normal travel time from Sacramento to the gold fields of the American River drainage. Read Edit View history. Theodore Judah. He was made the clerk of the House subcommittee on the bill and also obtained an appointment as secretary of the Senate subcommittee.

It was the burden of his thought day and night, largely of his conversation, till it used to be said 'Judah's Pacific Railroad crazy,' and I would say, 'Theodore, those people don't care,' or 'you give your thunder away.' He'd laugh and say, 'But we must keep the ball rolling."^[21]Wheat, A Sketch of the Life of Theodore D.

Judah ()

Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR)

Failing to raise funds for the Central Pacific project in San Francisco, Judah succeeded in signing up five Sacramento merchants,&#;: James Bailey, Leland Stanford, Collis P. Huntington, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker. On June 28, , the Central Pacific Rail Way of California (CPRR) was incorporated with Judah as the chief engineer.

At this point in time, Judah had the CPRR backing to survey the route over the Sierra Nevada along which the railroad was to be built during the s, as well as barometric reconnaissance of two other routes, which turned out to be inferior. In a report dated October 1, , Judah discussed the results of the survey, the merits of the chosen Dutch Flat-Donner Pass route,^[22] and the estimated costs from Sacramento to points as far as Salt Lake City.

On October 9, , the CPRR directors authorized Judah to go back to Washington DC, this time as the agent of CPRR, to procure "appropriations of land and U.S. Bonds from the Government to aid in the construction of this road". The next day, Judah published a strip map (a.k.a. the Theodore Judah map), 30 inches tall by 66 feet long, of the proposed alignment of the Central Pacific Railroad.^[23][24] On October 11, , Judah boarded a steamer in San Francisco headed for Panama.^[20]

At Washington DC, Judah began an active campaign for a Pacific Railroad bill.

He was made the clerk of the House subcommittee on the bill and also obtained an appointment as secretary of the Senate subcommittee. On July 1, , President Lincoln signed the Pacific Railroad Act into law, which authorized the issuance of land grants and U.S. bonds to CPRR and the newly chartered Union Pacific Railroad for the construction of a transcontinental railroad.

Judah then went to New York to order supplies and sailed back to California on July 21, , having accomplished his mission in less than a year.^[20]

Death

Judah died of yellow fever on November 2, He contracted the disease in Panama on a voyage with his wife to New York City, apparently becoming infected during their land passage across the Isthmus of Panama.

He was traveling to New York to seek alternative financing to buy out the major investors. Anna took his body back to Greenfield, Massachusetts, where he was buried in the Pierce family plot in the Federal Street Cemetery. He died before his dream ^[25] of a transcontinental railroad could be completed.

Legacy and honors

Within days of Judah's death, the CPRR's first locomotive, Gov.

Stanford, made a trial run over the new railroad's first feet of track in Sacramento, California.

• The CPRR named one of its steam locomotives (CP No. 4) after him.
  Theodore dehone judah biography wikipedia Authority control databases. Both were convinced that it could be done. US-T " U. He was a signficant contributor to the The First Transcontinental Railroad.

  Judah crossed paths with the ton locomotive bearing his name while on his way to New York.

• Mount Judah, an 8,foot peak in Placer County, California, located adjacent to Donner Peak and Mount Lincoln in the Sierra Nevada Tahoe National Forest, was formally named for Judah on October 18, , by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names.^[26][27][28] Running through the mountain about 1, below the summit is the 10,foot long single track UPRR Sierra Grade Tunnel No.

  41 (aka "The Big Hole") which was opened in and carries both UPRR freight and Amtrak passenger trains in both directions over Donner Summit between Soda Springs and Eder. This route bypasses the original, now abandoned CPRR "Summit Tunnel" (No. 6) surveyed by Judah which is located a mile to the north and had remained in service until ^[29]

• Judah Street in San Francisco and its N-JudahMunistreetcar line are named after him.
• Memorial plaques dedicated to him have been erected in Folsom and Sacramento, California
• Elementary schools in Sacramento and Folsom are named after Judah.^[30][31]

"In purely engineering retrospect, Judah’s achievements would seem nothing short of providential, especially in comparison to modern route surveying efforts.

With a minimal survey crew utilizing crude instruments and only draft animals for transportation, Judah was able to lay out a remarkably accurate alignment across the most difficult natural obstacles undertaken up until that time ()." J. David Rogers and Charles R. Spinks, ASCE Golden Spike th Anniversary History Symposium, Sacramento, CA, May 6,

See also

References

Sources

• Bain, David H. Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad ()
• Cooper, Bruce C. (). Riding the Transcontinental Rails: Overland Travel on the Pacific Railroad . Philadelphia: Polyglot Press.

  ISBN&#;.

• Cooper, Bruce Clement (). The Classic Western American Railroad Routes. New York: Chartwell Books/Worth Press. ISBN&#;.
• John Debo Galloway; The First Transcontinental Railroad: Central Pacific, Union Pacific ()
• Theodore Henry Hittell, History of California () vol 4
• Wheat, Carl I.

  “A Sketch of the Life of Theodore D. Judah.” California Historical Society Quarterly, vol. 4, no. 3, , pp.&#;– JSTOR, Accessed 14 Dec.

• White, John H. Jr. (Spring ). "America's Most Noteworthy Railroaders". Railroad History. : 9– ISSN&#; JSTOR&#; OCLC&#;
• White, Richard ().
  Theodore dehone judah biography images Theodore Dehone Judah - Can you contribute information or sources? Placerville, California. Categories : First transcontinental railroad births deaths People from Bridgeport, Connecticut Deaths from yellow fever 19th-century American railroad executives Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute alumni Infectious disease deaths in New York state American surveyors People from Troy, New York 19th-century American Episcopalians.

  Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN&#;.

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