USA > Pennsylvania > Encyclopedia of contemporary biography of Pennsylvania, Vol. I > Part 2
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THOMAS A. SCOTT.
COL. THOMAS ALEXANDER SCOTT, a distin- guished American railway executive, late President of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, and Assist- ant Secretary of War of the United States during a portion of the administration of President Lincoln, was born in the village of Loudon, Franklin County, Pa., December 28, 1823, and died at his country res- idence, near Darby, in the same State, May 21, 1881. At the time of his birth his native village consisted of a few straggling houses which lay on both sides of the Baltimore and Pittsburgh turnpike-then the great highway to the West-and close under the shadows of Cove Mountain. The village inn, kept by his father, was almost daily enlivened by the
trains of Conestoga teams which then freighted the commerce between the East and West. The boy was a great favorite with guests of this humble hostlery, and he was frequently called upon to ren- der them such trifling services as were possible to one of his tender years. The transition from this state of general helpfulness to one of general useful- ness about the hotel was easily accomplished, and at an age when most boys are being literally fed from a spoon, this representative young American was not only earning his own living and helping his parents, but also acquiring the rudiments of an ed- ucation. It is true that at that time and place the educational facilities were meagre and the course brief, but Thomas availed himself of them as cir- cumstances permitted, and was not far behind the best of his fellows. At the age of ten he found em- ployment in a country store near Waynesboro, in his native county. Upon leaving this place he obtained similar employment in the neighboring towns of Bridgeport and Mercersburg, where he re- mained, always busily engaged, until 1841, when his brother-in-law, Major Patton, then Collector of Tolls on the State Railroad at Columbia, appointed him to a clerkship in the State office. The preva- lent opinion in the neighborhood regarding this ap- pointment was that the Major had made a mistake in placing a mere lad of eighteen in such an impor- tant position. But events proved that he knew far more of the lad's capabilities than did his envious detractors. Thomas discharged his public duties in a manner that speedily disarmed criticism. It is probable that he was the best clerk to whom these duties had ever been entrusted. Intelligent, method- ical and obliging, he not only got through his work to the satisfaction of everybody, but did it so well that those above him were compelled to make note of it. All prejudice finally disappeared and from every quarter came nothing but words of praise. In 1847, young Scott, who was only in his twenty- fourth year, was called by Mr. A. Boyd Cummings, then a resident of Philadelphia, and Collector on the State road at that point, to the chief-clerkship of his office, at that time the most important Collector's office in the State. Here Mr. Scott " developed so broadly as a man of keen perception and rapid and methodical execution that he attracted the attention of Colonel Patterson, President of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, and in 1851 he was transferred to the railroad that he has been mainly instrumental in making the first railway corporation in the world, and that has made his name immortal among the men of greatest achievement in the materi- al progress of the country." He began his labors with the Pennsylvania Railroad at the junction near
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
Hollidaysburg, where he was placed in charge of the business of the company passing over the Portage Road on the Alleghanies, that had to be used until the regular line could be completed and the use of inclined planes and stationary en- gines dispensed with. As portions of the Western Division of the railroad were constructed their op- eration was assigned to him, and when it was com- pleted and opened for traffic he was appointed its Superintendent, with his headquarters at Pitts- burgh. In 1858 he was made General Superintend- ent of the entire road and then had his office at Altoona. In 1860 he was unanimously chosen to the Vice-Presidency of the road, which had been made vacant by the death of William B. Foster. He thus completed the circle of railway advance- ment from the construction train to the second ex- ecutive office of the corporation in less than a de- cade, and caclı promotion came to him because of his pre-eminent fitness for its duties and wholly without any other effort on his own part than that of fidelity to the duties of the position, whatever it was, in which he found himself placed. As second executive of the company his duties were of a char- acter to admit of the fullest display of his great abilities, and although another decade elapsed be- fore he became chief executive, his influence during that period was exercised with a potential and most happy effect upon the affairs of the corporation, and, incidentally, upon the success of the Union arms during the Rebellion, and the prosperity and progress of his native State. In 1861, when the exi- gencies of the Nation demanded the services in an authoritative placc, of one skilled in railroad affairs, President Lincoln and Secretary Camcron decided that Thomas A. Scott was the man, and he was invited to accept the position of Assistant Secretary of War. The need of the country at the moment was urgent, and Mr. Scott being persuaded that he had a clear duty in the premises, accepted the appointment and its weighty responsibilities. The corporation of which he was second officer could ill afford to spare him, as its own work had largely increased with the advent of civil war; but it, too, yielded gracefully to the demand made. The distinguished editor of the Philadelphia Times, in referring, in an editorial, to Mr. Scott's labors at this period, says :
"It was then that Colonel Scott rose above all others around him in grasping and executing the startling advancement demanded by the Nation's needs. The writer hereof has seen him in the coun- cil of war, in the dark days of the Rebellion, when veteran soldiers hesitated to command; and while great military and civil leaders gravely counseled, he was the most undaunted of all. He moved vast bodies of troops with the utmost celerity as plans
werc matured, by the clicks of his little battery, without schedule and without accident, and thus days and nights in succession were given to duty with a cheerfulness that scemed to mock the want of rest. Nor was he permitted to relax his labors after the war had been accepted by the Nation and its armies organized. While others filled the posi- tions of honor, it was Colonel Scott, as Assistant Secretary of War, who brought order out of chaos in the direction and handling of our soldiers. From Fortress Monroe to Shiloh his administrative power was felt, and he relinquished his position after hav- ing perfected the military system of transporting troops, only because the direction of his railway corporation imperatively demanded his services."
In 1862, as soon as he could be spared, he resigned the office of Assistant Secretary of War and re- sumed his executive functions with the Pennsyl- vania Railroad. Nevertheless he was not actually relieved, for while the war lasted, he was repeated- ly impressed into the service of the Government, to aid in moving the Union forces. In every grave emergency in which large bodies of troops had to be transferred with the utmost caution and celerity, Colonel Scott was the man upon whom the Presi- dent and the War Department leaned and depended. "After the disastrous battle of Chickamauga he was dispatched to Louisville to facilitate the transfer of the Eleventh and Twelfth Army Corps, via Nash- ville, to the relief of Rosecrans at Chattanooga, and the country rejoiced, after the most painful appre- hensions and suspense, when the news was flashed throughout the land that the Army of the Tennes- see was reinforced and safe." At no time during the long years of the Civil War did Colonel Scott relax his labors or efforts for the development and progress of the great corporation with which he was so pre-eminently identificd and which was so im- portant a factor in the Government military opera- tions. When the armies had left the field and he was again free to devote his whole time to his administrative work, he threw himself into the task with, if anything, a new energy. Yearly his duties and responsibilities were increased, and thus, by degrees, he was fitted to assume the entire manage- ment of the company's affairs. This came to him June 3, 1874, following the death of his distinguished and beloved colleague, superior and predecessor, Mr. J. Edgar Thomson, whom he was chosen to succeed in the Presidency. No account, however brief, of Colonel Scott's life could be considered as complete unless it included at least a synopsis of the history of the Pennsylvania Railroad. The fol- lowing historical details respecting this road are quot- ed from an article in the Philadelphia Times, Sunday, May 22, 1881, the day after Colonel Scott's death. The article referred to is entitled "Colonel Scott's Great Work," and is presumably from the pen of
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
Alexander McClure, the gifted editor of the paper mentioned. It says :
"Born just about the time when the far-seeing sagacity of DeWitt Clinton had perfected in the State of New York the canal system, which ex- tended from the great lakes to the ocean, and thus secured for that Commonwealth the control of the through commerce of the country, it was reserved to Thomas A. Scott to conceive and build up a far mightier system, whose main termini were the ocean on one hand, the Mississippi, the Ohio and the lakes upon the other, and whose incidental ex- tensions alonc were such as to have fully occupied the brain of any other man, emhracing, as they did, an extensive network of railways through all the Southern States, and a great trunk line to the Pa- cific ocean. It is only when we reflect upon the magnitude of the work that he accomplished, that we can realize the unity of purpose which for twen- ty years past guided his action and which concen- trated every fihre of muscle and brain with such in- tense vitality upon the object in view, that, hurning life's candle at both ends, he fell in the prime of life and, after a brief struggle * *
* passed away.
" We have grown so accustomed in these days to the projection and completion of gigantic enter- prises that we fail to realize the grandeur of the conception which gave hirth over thirty years ago to the Pennsylvania Railroad, or the heroic faith and determination which inspired and dominated those connected with it. Besides the Erie Canal and Erie Railway on the north, the commercial position of Philadelphia was most seriously threatened hy the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad upon the south, and the danger was imminent, should the completion of the road he delayed to Pittsburgh, that the Western railways then about to he constructed would form unfriendly alliances and divert their traffic to its competitors. As quaintly stated in 1849, by Colonel Patterson, then President of the road : 'The Western trade attracted to Philadelphia when the pack-horse of the primitive transporter trod the route now chosen for the Pennsylvania Railroad, as well by the commanding advantages of her geographical position as by the unsullied reputa- tion of her merchants for prohity and good faith, had heen to some extent withdrawn from her hy the profuse liberality with which her Northern and Southern sisters had taxed their capital and credit to surmount, by artificial means, the harriers with which nature had environed them.' It was ahsolute- ly necessary (the road having heen then built as far as Altoona) that a supreme effort should be made to raise the funds required to avoid the Portage, with its inclined planes, hetween Hollidaysburg and Johnstown, and make prompt connection at Pitts- burgh with the Ohio river, the great channel for Western trade. Urgent appeals were made to the city and the citizens of Philadelphia for additional subscriptions, and the necessary amount having been thus ohtained to complete the western division to a connection with the Portage Road on the 10th of December, 1852, the work on the mountain divis- ion was steadily pressed forward, so that on the 15th of February, 1854, the planes were dispensed with and trains ran through in fifteen hours from the Delaware to the Ohio.
"This result attained through eight years of in- cessant lahor, was but the first victory in the strug- gle for competitive traffie. In the very first report to the shareholders the question of extensions he- yond Pittsburgh was fully discussed, and at each annual meeting thereafter the company indorsed the policy of aiding its western connections and thereby establishing intimate relations with them as feeders of the main line. It was in this school and with a firm faith in its teachings that Mr. Scott grew up, and no sooner had he become one of its executive officers than his influence was strenuously exerted toward building up a great trunk line, whose roots should draw life and vigor from the commercial centres of the West, and whose vigor- ous and healthy growth should hring ever-increas- ing prosperity to the city so nobly identified with its early development.
"The history of the company faithfully reflects our National progress for thirty years past, and in watching its steady growth until the gross revenue of scant $350,000, of the main line in 1850, had grown in ten years to nearly $6,000,000, in twenty years to over $17,000,000, and in thirty years to $26,000,000, while the tonnage of 1,350,000 tons of 1860 had grown to over 15,000,000 tons in 1880, we can ap- preciate the labors and responsibilities that have accu- mulated upon its executive officers and the gravity of the questions with which they have had to grap- ple. The cardinal article of their faith has been to demand and preserve for Philadelphia the advan- tage of her geographical position and insist upon an allowance in her favor by reason of her shorter dis- tance to the seaboard, as against New York and Boston. Thrice has this hattle heen fought, in 1859, 1867, and 1876, and each time have her competitors been compelled to acknowledge the justice of her position and retire from the contest. This has se- cured to our city the full fruits of the policy which from the earliest days of the road has stimulated the construction of tributary railways, and which the stockholders have approved from time to time, un- til the iron fingers of her outstretched hand reach Erie, Ashtabula, Cleveland, Toledo and Chicago on the Lakes, St. Louis on the Mississippi, and Louis- ville, Cincinnati and Wheeling on the Ohio river. The same broad policy has secured additional ter- mini on the seahoard and divided the traffic of Bal- timore and New York with the lines local to those cities, so that to-day there is no railroad in the world which drains so large a territory and controls in one ownership such an extensive system of roads. It is to Mr. Scott more than to any other one man that the splendid condition is due out of which has grown this imperial domain, whose gross revenues last year were thirty-six millions of dollars, and the net profit from which, after meeting all expenses and charges, was over three millions of dollars ; and it was his task to mould those Western lines into one harmonious whole and make them not only self- supporting, hut a source of financial strength to the parent company.
" As early as 1852 the stockholders had author- ized subscriptions in aid of the Ohio and Pennsyl- vania and the Ohio and Indiana Roads, afterwards consolidated into the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railway, the Springfield and Mt. Vernon and Marietta and Cincinnati Roads, with the view of sccuring connections with Chicago and Cincin-
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
nati. In 1854 they authorized the indorsement of the bonds of the Steubenville and Indiana Railroad, in order to secure the completion of the most direct line to Cincinnati, Indianapolis and St. Louis. In 1858, to secure the completion of the Fort Wayne Road to Chicago, they loaned to that line the iron rails taken from the Portage Road, so that on the 25th of December of that year it was open to traffic for its entire length. In 1864 the Steubenville and Indiana Road was completed through to Columbus, and the profit realized upon the investment made on the Fort Wayne Road was invested in the Pitts- burg and Steubenville line. In 1868 this road was consolidated with the Pittsburgh and Steubenville Road and the Holliday's Cove Road into the Pitts- burgh, Cincinnati and St. Louis Railway, and the following year, in order to prevent the Erie Rail- way from securing the control of the Columbus, Chicago and Indiana Central Railway lines to Chi- cago and Indianapolis, a lease was perfected of that system to the Pan Handle Road under the guaran- tee of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company.
"This lease practically reversed the policy here- before pursued by the company, which had been to reach the traffic of the Northwest and Southwest by assisting the construction of tributary lines leading to the markets of these sections, but not to control their management beyond the State of Pennsylva- nia. It was the first of a step in a new departure, and inaugurated a bolder and more aggressive cam- paign. The growing traffie of the West had become too rich a prize to be allowed to pass into rival hands, and Mr. Scott was quick to discern the fav- orable time for action and secure the prize in ad- vance of all competitors. The lease of the C., C. and I. C. line was quickly followed by that of the Little Miami, the Fort Wayne and Chicago, the Erie and Pittsburgh and Cleveland and Pittsburgh ; and it is an incontestable proof of the sound judg- ment which guided this course that the latter three leases have yielded a million of dollars profit annu- ally to the Pennsylvania Company, and that the bonds of that company, bearing but four and a half per cent. interest and having these leascs as their main security, are now [May, 1881,] selling in the market above par. The lease of the Jeffersonville, Madison and Indianapolis Road in 1873 perfected the connection to Louisville and secured the control of the bridge at that point, the one at Cincinnati being also under the control of the Pennsylvania Road. The construction of the Vandalia Line gave to that system the best line to St. Louis, while a half ownership in the Indianapolis and St. Louis Road and its control of the Alton and Terra Haute, gave it an equal voice in the direction of the rival route. In addition to this extensive network of railways, the Indianapolis and Vincennes, Cincinnati and Muskingum Valley, Grand Rapids and Indiana, Cincinnati, Richmond and Fort Wayne, Ashtabula and Pittsburgh, and Northwestern Ohio, are also under the same management, so that the bureau at Pittsburgh, known as the Pennsylvania Company, and having all this system under its special super- vision, has an amount of labor and responsibility resting upon it which practically knows neither rest nor limit. In 1871, Mr. Scott as the [Vice] Presi- dent of the Pennsylvania Company, and also as the President of the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and St. Louis Railway Company, assumed the direct executive
management of those lines and from that time until his retirement in 1880 he was the ruling spirit in their councils. His reports give a clear and graphic account of the gradual steps by which they were moulded into compact and powerful organizations, with properties in admirable condition both as to efficiency and earning power.
"The struggling roads, with imperfect track and equipment, have been replaced by steel-railed, stone-ballasted highways, with abundant power and rolling stock, until they begin to challenge the main line to a friendly contest for the front rank and move their traffie at rates that justify this seeming presumption. When it is remembered that two jealous and antagonistic systems had to be harmo- nized and justly dealt with to secure this result, and that, in addition to securing favorable returns to the Pennsylvania Railroad, the local interests and prejudices of the members of the Western family had to be consulted and recognized, it can be read- ily understood how much sagacity, tact and firmness had to be exercised to accomplish the end desired."
As previously stated, Coloncl Scott came to the Presidency in 1874. Four years later, in the fall of 1878, he suffered a paralytic stroke. A year's so- journ in Europe enabled him to resume his duties in a general way, but his health was permanently shattered, and, acting under the advice of his physi- cians, he resigned his position May 1, 1880. One of his great achievements while President was the founding of the trust or sinking fund, under the provisions of which the liabilities of the road, in the shape of guarantees and indorsements, are surely and effectually provided for out of its surplus rev- enues. But this was only one of several successful financial undertakings. When the Union Pacific Railway was in sore financial distress he took its Presidency for a year, and at the end of that time restored it to its shareholders in admirable condi- tion, and with its securities greatly enhanced in value. The burden of the management of this great road, a thousand miles in length, was added to his other cares and responsibilities without hesitancy, and was borne cheerfully and easily. The same can be said of his labors in connection with the South- ern Railway Security Company, formed for the pur- pose of reconstructing the Southern railways and putting them on a sound footing, and in which he was the ruling spirit. In conjunction with both these tasks he also fulfilled the duties of President of the Texas and Pacific Railway, the great South- ern road across the continent; with which his name must ever be indissolubly linked and to the Presi- dency of which he came in 1872, being elected upon the death of Marshall O. Roberts. With his usual clearness on railroad matters he was quick to per- ceive the National importance of this route and its favorable geographical and climatic advantages, and to its successful completion he almost devoted
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
his life and fortune, pledging his personal means and indorsing it so as to enable it to successfully weather the financial panic of 1873. He endeavored in vain to persuade the National Government to se- cure this transcontinental line in the interests of the people, and "it is not his fault that the entire through commerce between the two oceans is now controlled by private capital and in a private inter- est." He was always unsparing of himself, and it was this which undoubtedly shortened his days, al- though he may be said to have compressed the ordinary work of several years into each one of his. During the great railroad riots of 1877 Colonel Scott's personal and moral courage was strikingly exhibited. " With the depot and miles of cars and engines in flames at Pittsburgh; with the rioters in force at every prominent point between New York and Baltimore on the east, and Chicago and St. Louis on the west; with the ordinary police force paralyzed, the State militia inadequate, and the National Government averse to interference," he preserved the coolness of an experienced and skill- ful general. From his headquarters in West Phila- delphia he controlled the situation over five thou- sand miles of road, and resolutely declined to yield a point until the lawless element had been put down and the men returned to duty. The amount of work accomplished by Mr. Scott was truly marvellous and has often been commented upon by close stu- dents of mankind. The discriminating editor of " Representative Men, North and South," writing of Colonel Scott in 1873, when he was at the very zenith of his activity, says :
" With all the labor, however, thrown upon him, he has not become impatient, but preserves that genial manner which is so rare a gift with our over- driven public men. He has the happy faculty of refusing gracefully ; and, with the numberless calls upon him of every nature and kind, reasonable and unreasonable, this is certainly of no mean value. His rapid disposal of business has become almost a household word; and he is fortunate in the fact, that with work once done, he is able to dismiss it utter- ly, and, on leaving his office to leave all business cares behind him. Of course this is partly due to a vigorous physique which seems to defy toil, but partly also to an elastic temperament which never regrets what is unalterable, but is busy in devising new schemes to accomplish a desired end."
Guided by a well-trained judgment and by a rare intuition, Colonel Scott was remarkably ready in word and deed. He often met an emergency or solved a most difficult problem of management in an instant. When worn out by his arduous labors it was not an uncommon occurrence for him to fall asleep the moment he willed it, and on awakening, refreshed, to go on with his task. His enjoyment
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