List of Union Pacific Railroad civil engineers (1863–1869)

This is a partial list of Union Pacific railroad civil engineers who worked on the Union Pacific railway in its initial construction from Council Bluffs, Iowa to Promontory Summit, Utah from its groundbreaking on December 1, 1863, to its completion on May 10, 1869.

Andrew J. Russell photograph of some of the civil engineers who worked on the Union Pacific (1863-1869). Sixteen men are standing in the photograph. The man standing on the left was one of several railroad contractors who built the road, General "Jack" Casement

List
  • Ainsworth, Danforth Hulburt, (1828-1904) 1865-1866. (Engineer in charge of surveys, 1865; Div. Engineer) [1]
  • Appleton, Francis Everett (1842-1877) [lower-alpha 1][2][3]
  • Armstrong,H.N. 1868-1869 (Division engineer - Cheyenne to Wasatch)
  • Bates, Cpt Thomas H. (1833-1927) (Division Engineer - Salt Lake City, Utah) [lower-alpha 2][4]
  • Bissell, Hezekiah (1835-1928) (Civil Engineer - UPRR, 1864-1869) [lower-alpha 3] Bissell was involved in the construction of the Dale Creek crossing and reportedly made the decision to use rope and chain to anchor the bridge from high winds.[5]
  • Blickensderfer, Jacob (1816-1899) [lower-alpha 4][6][7]
  • Brown, Percy T. (d1867) and L. L. Hills (d1867)
In July 1867, Mr. Percy T. Brown, (assistant engineer) whose division extended from the North Platte to Green River, was running a line across the Laramie Plains. His party was camped on Rock Creek where they were attacked by the Sioux. Brown was out on the line with most of the party, but those in the camp were able to hold the Indians off, but a small party out after wood, under a promising young fellow named Clark, a nephew of Thurlow Weed, of New York, was killed with one of his escorts, and several of the escorts were wounded. Brown, in reconnoitering the country, ... struck 300 Sioux Indians who were on the warpath. He had with him eight men of his escort. Brown died in the fight. [8]
  • Case, Francis M. (1835-1912) 1865-1867. (Division Engineer - UPRR)
  • Casement, John S. (1829-1909) (Casement Brothers construction,1866-1869)
  • Dey, Peter A. (1825-1911) (Locating engineer; engineer in charge of preliminary survey-UPRR, 1863-1864.) [9] [10]
  • Dixon, Wiley B. 1864 (Engineering corp.)
  • Dillon, Sidney (1812-1892) [11]
  • Dodge,Grenville Mellen (1831-1916) (Chief engineer - UPRR, 1866-1870; director, 1869-1973; U.S. representative - Iowa, 1867-1869) [12] [13]
  • Eddy, J. M., served with Dodge during the Civil War and part of the 1867 expedition wherein Dodge laid out the line to Cheyenne.[14]
  • Edwards, Ogden 1864-1865. (Division engineer - UPRR)
  • Eicholtz, Col. Leonard H. (1827-1911)[15] 1868. (Bridge Engineer - UPRR)
  • Evans, James A. (1827-1887) 1864-1869 (Division engineer - UPRR) [16][17]
  • Ferguson, Arthur Northcote (1842-1906) 1865-1869. (Second assistant engineer- UPRR Eastern Division) [lower-alpha 5][18]
  • Gray, E.F. 1869. Civil engineer
  • Harding, Henry, Civil engineer 1865-1870) (1837-1910), a Union Pacific Railroad engineer from Hartland, VT. Harding was one of the landowners shown on the map at a plot just west of Cheyenne. He entered into Norwich University in Vermont, in 1852, where he met Grenville Dodge. Harding worked on eastern railroads until 1865 when Dodge hired him to work as an assistant engineer on the Union Pacific. Harding's specific responsibility was the architectural backbone of the road; he designed bridges, station houses, roundhouses, etc. He would go on to work for the United States Engineering Corps, 1873-1890. He retired in 1890 to his hometown of Hartland.[14]
  • Hayden, Ferdinand Vandiveer, 1868-1869. (Geologist, author - "Geology of UPRR Route")
  • Henry, John E. (Director - UPRR, 1863-1866; general superintendent and chief engineer - UPRR Eastern Division, 1864; general superintendent - N.E. road, 1864; chairman - committee on construction):
  • Hodge, James Thatcher, (1816-1871) -1863. (Geologist) succeeded by David Van Lennep (1826-1910) [19]
  • Hodges, Fred S. (1865-1869 Engineering corp - rodman; assistant engineer):[20][21]
  • House, J. E. 1864-1868. Future Chief Engineer of the UPRR, laid out townsites in Utah.[14][22]
  • Hoxie, Herbert Melville (1830-1886) [23]
  • Hudnutt, Col. Joseph Opdyke (1824-1910) 1869 (Division Engineer) [24][25][26]
  • Hurd, Major Marshall Farnam (1823-1903) Dodge's staff engineer during the Civil War, who became unit chief in what Dodge called some of the most difficult Indian Territory.[14] [27] Mount Hurd is named after him.
  • Kelly, J.H., 1865. (Engineering corp - chairman)
  • Ledlie, James H. (1832 – 1882) bridge engineer [28]
  • Maxwell,James Riddle (1836-1912) [lower-alpha 6][29][30][31]
  • McCabe, J. F.[32]
  • Morris, Thomas Burnside (1842-1885) 1869. (Construction engineer) [33] [34]
  • North, Edward P. , Chicago, 1868-1869. (Resident Engineer)
  • O'Neill,John [35][36]
  • Rawlins,John Aaron (1831–1869)
  • Reed,Samuel B. (1818-1891) (Locating engineer - UPRR, 1864-1865; engineer of construction; superintendent of operations, 1866-1869)[37][38]
  • Rosewater, Andrew (b1848) [39]
  • Seymour,Col. Silas (1817-1890) [40] [41]
  • Sharman, Charles H. (1841-1938) [23] Sharman's journal of his working on the project provided the source material for Western fiction author Ernest Haycox to write a story called the "troubleshooter" in Collier's magazine in 1936. Thus, Sharman's manuscript written by a civil engineer became the basis for the movie, "Union Pacific", released in 1939.[23]
  • Sickels, Theophilus E., 1870. (Chief engineer and superintendent - UPRR, 1870)
  • Williams, Jesse Lynch, 1864-1868. (Civil engineer; government director, 1864-1869)

See also

Notes
  1. Birth: 1841 - Penobscot,Maine, United States-Death:Bangor,Maine-April 1877 Source; Parents: Moses Larke Appleton, Jane Sophia Hill. Appleton went to the Worcester Polytechnic Institute and graduated Class of 1874; working in Lowell, Mass.
  2. Captain Thomas H. Bates sued for nearly $40,000 for ties furnished and for money disbursed while he was employed as UPRR division engineer. See the account in the Deseret News, September 16, 1869. Bates Obituary in December 19, 1927, Odgen paper on page 2.
  3. Bissell-Born at E. Windsor, Conn.(Feb 7, 1835) died June 23, 1928; Married Alice Hughes in 1875 in Elgin, Canada; 1880 thru 1910, lived in Salem, MA; Ph.B., Sheffield Scientific Sch. (Yale), 1861. Civil engr. on U.P.R.R. during constrn.,1864-9, dur on Puno & Cuzco R.R., Peru, S.A.,1872-4, C., C.,C.& St.L. Ry., 1875-8, Eastern R.R., 1878-88; chief engr., B.& M. R.R.,1888-1909, later consulting engr. Address: Alta Dena, Cal. Source:Marquis, A. Nelson., Leonard, J. W. Who's who in America. Chicago: Marquis Who's Who [etc.]. Volume 9, 1916-1917. See also Sharman article in Montana history.
  4. Member of ASCE, Chief engineer of Steubenville and Indiana railroad in Ohio. (The History of Tuscarawas County, Ohio)
  5. Arthur Northcote Ferguson, born October 4, 1842, in Albany, NY. His father was Fenner Ferguson, chief justice of Nebraska territory,1854. Three years subsequent to that date, Mr.Ferguson and his two brothers, A. G. and S. W. Ferguson, were engaged as civil engineers in the location and construction of the Union Pacific Railroad, continuing in that service from the commencement until the completion of the road, in 1869. Source:Savage, James Woodruff, John Thomas Bell, and Consul Willshire Butterfield. History of the City of Omaha, Nebraska. Munsell, 1894. Judge Ferguson died in Omaha, NE on October 26,1906.
  6. James Riddle Maxwell, a resident of Newark, Delaware, and a civil engineer who worked for significant railroads in the American West and South America, was born in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, in 1836. He attended Hyatt's Military Academy at Chester and then studied at Delaware College and Polytechnic College in 1860. After he graduated in 1862, Maxwell moved to Newark, Delaware, where he began his career as a civil engineer. Employed first by the Pennsylvania Railroad, he later traveled to the western United States as chief of an exploration and survey party for the Union Pacific and Northern Pacific railroads. Maxwell preserved this experience in an unpublished manuscript titled "Incidents in an Engineer's Life in the Far West."(Special Collections-University of Delaware)

References
  1. Recollections of a civil engineer by Ainsworth, D. H. (Danforth Hurlburt), 1828-1904 Accessed at
  2. Galloway (1950), page 198.
  3. Klein, 2006. Appleton was Brown's assistant engineer.(117)
  4. Galloway (1950), page 198.
  5. Wilcox, 2001 citing Hezekiah Bissell, "Reminiscenses," p. 76, ca. 1900, Wyoming State Archives, Cheyenne
  6. Johnson, A., & Graf, L. P. (1999). Papers of Andrew Johnson: 15. Knoxville: Univ. of Tennessee Pr. 1868-1869, page 137. Accessed at
  7. Galloway (1950), page 198.
  8. Dodge (1910), pages 111-112 This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  9. "Guide to the Peter Anthony Dey Papers". The University of Iowa Libraries. The University of Iowa. Retrieved 23 November 2018.
  10. The Iowa Journal of History and Politics, 1911, Vol IX, No. 1, page 603, Accessed at
  11. Proceedings of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Volume 22, page 706. Accessed at This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  12. Galloway (1950)
  13. "Johnson County IA GenWeb Project – Peter Anthony Dey". /iagenweb.org. Western Historical Press. Retrieved 23 November 2018.
  14. "The Birth Certificate of Cheyenne -- The First Map to Show the Area Laid out for the City, but Pre-Dating its Establishment by Several Months". Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps. Retrieved 10 August 2020.
  15. Eicholtz, Leonard H. Diaries 1852-1910. 1.35 cubic ft. (3 boxes) #238, University of Wyoming.
  16. Galloway (1950), page 198.
  17. Find-a-grave for James A Evans, buried at Riverside cemetery in Denver, Colorado.
  18. Savage, James Woodruff, John Thomas Bell, and Consul Willshire Butterfield. History of the City of Omaha, Nebraska. Munsell, 1894. Accessed at
  19. Galloway, John Debo. The First Transcontinental Railroad: Central Pacific, Union Pacific. Simmons-Boardman, 1950. accessed at on August 2020.
  20. Galloway (1950), page 198.
  21. Klein, 2006. p. 118 -Hodges was Evan's assistant.(117)
  22. Galloway (1950), page 198.
  23. Haycox Jr, Ernest. "'A very exclusive party'." Montana; The Magazine of Western History 51.1 (2001): 20. accessed at
  24. Leeson, Michael A. History of Montana. 1739-1885: A History of Its Discovery and Settlement, Social and Commercial Progress, Mines and Miners, Agriculture and Stock-growing, Churches, Schools and Societies, Indians and Indian Wars, Vigilantes, Courts of Justice, Newspaper Press, Navigation, Railroads and Statistics, with Histories of Counties, Cities, Villages and Mining Camps. Warner, Beers & Company, 1885. Accessed at
  25. "Guide to the Meserve-Kunhardt Collection GEN MSS 1430". Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Yale University Library. Retrieved 23 November 2018.
    Hunutt picture is in Box 13, Folder 208, Hudnutt, Joseph Opdyke, 1824-1910, 1 mounted gelatin silver print
  26. Eicher, John, and David Eicher. Civil War High Commands. Stanford University Press, 2002. page 308. Accessed at
  27. Congressional Series of United States Public Documents, Volume 5658, page 107 Accessed at See also Dodge, 1871, page 107.
  28. O'Neil, Hugh F. "LIST OF PERSONS PRESENT, PROMONTORY, UTAH: MAY 10, 1869." Utah Historical Quarterly 24.2 (1956): 157-164.
  29. MSS 170, James Maxwell papers, Special Collections, University of Delaware Library, Newark, Delaware.
  30. Galloway (1950), page 198.
  31. Klein, 2006. Maxwell was chief of survey for Seymour.(120)
  32. Galloway (1950), page 198.
  33. Jordan, John W. Colonial and revolutionary families of Pennsylvania. Genealogical Publishing Com, 2004. page 60. Accessed at
  34. Dodge (1910), page 96
  35. Galloway (1950), page 198.
  36. Klein, 2006. O'Neill was assistant to Maxwell, chief of survey for Seymour.(120)
  37. "Samuel B. Reed Papers (MS 409)". Yale University Library. Retrieved 23 November 2018.
  38. "MS 414 - Samuel B. Reed Collection, 1826-2000". Buffalo Bill Center of the West. McCracken Research Library. Retrieved 23 November 2018.
  39. Engineering News and American Railway Journal, Volume 26, July 11, 1891, page 33 Accessed at This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  40. Galloway (1950), page 198.
  41. Deibert, Jack E., and Brent H. Breithaupt. Tracks, Trails, and Thieves: FV Hayden's 1868 Survey. Vol. 521. Geological Society of America, 2016. See page 58 for a picture of Seymour and of Dillion. Accessed at

Sources

  • Athearn, R. G. (1971). Union Pacific country. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
  • Dodge, Grenville Mellen. How We Built the Union Pacific Railway: And Other Railway Papers and Addresses. Vol. 447. US Government Printing Office, 1910. List of civil engineers on page 37 of 1910 material. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  • Galloway, John Debo. The First Transcontinental Railroad: Central Pacific, Union Pacific. Simmons-Boardman, 1950. Accessed at This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  • Heier, Jan Richard. "Building the Union Pacific Railroad: A study of mid-nineteenth-century railroad construction accounting and reporting practices." Accounting, Business & Financial History 19.3 (2009): 327-351. Accessed at
  • Klein, Maury. Union Pacific: 1862-1893. Vol. 1. U of Minnesota Press, 2006.

Manuscript Collections

  • Casement Collection, 1795-1959. c. 2,000 items. Incl. a large group of letters written by John S. Casement about the Union Pacific. Kansas State U. Lib. and Dept. of Hist., Manhattan. 60-1211
  • Casement, John S. 158 items. Incl. correspondence, relating to the Union Pacific, 1866-69. Huntington Lib., San Marino.
  • Papers of Levi O. Leonard, Collection Dates: 1850 -- 1942, Special Collections Department, the University of Iowa Libraries, Accessed at
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