Dewitt Clinton Haskin

Col. Dewitt Clinton Haskin (circa 1824 – July 17, 1900) was an American engineer who developed the initial methods for construction of the first tunnels under the Hudson River between New Jersey and Manhattan.

California Pacific Railroad: D. C. Haskin, effective October 18, 1869

In the late 1860s Haskin gained experience in California on the construction of the California Pacific Railroad.[1]

For the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad project, he founded the Hudson Tunnel Company in 1873, and began construction in 1874 by digging a shaft in Jersey City, New Jersey.[2] He had patented a compressed air method for reducing cave-ins, but in 1880, 20 workers were killed in a blowout. Another blowout in 1881 and a gradual loss of funding halted the project in 1887. After a British firm worked on the project from 1889-1891,[3] lawyer William Gibbs McAdoo completed the project in 1908.[4] (See Uptown Hudson Tubes.)

References
  1. Delaplane, Kristin (1996). "Railroad brings Solano on track in 1860s." Echoes of Solano's Past. Solano County Historical Society.
  2. Jacobs, David; Anthony E. Neville (1968). Bridges, Canals & Tunnels: The Engineering Conquest of America. New York: American Heritage Publishing Co. Inc. with the Smithsonian Institution. p. 107. ISBN 0-442-04040-7.
  3. "Progress of the Great Railway Tunnels Under the Hudson River Between New York and Jersey City". Scientific American. 1890-11-01.
  4. Cudahy, Brian J. (2002), Rails Under the Mighty Hudson (2nd ed.), New York: Fordham University Press, pp. 13–16, ISBN 978-0-82890-257-1, OCLC 911046235


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