USA > Pennsylvania > Prominent and progressive Pennsylvanians of the nineteenth century. Volume I > Part 27
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ROBERT PITCAIRN was born in Johnstone, Scotland, May 6, 1836, his parents having visited America and returned to Scotland previous to this time. In 1847, realizing that in the land across the seas they could obtain for their sons better opportunities, they returned to America. Two years after that, in 1849, when Robert was thirteen years of age, he entered the telegraph service as messenger, and so great was his activity and so close his atten- tion to the details of the business that he was promoted to the position of telegraph operator. He had been educated in a modest way in the village schools of Scotland and later in the institutions of this country, where he continued to study in the night schools after he had obtained his first situation. In 1853 Mr. Pitcairn first entered the service of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, in which he has since obtained such an honorable standing, as Telegraph Operator and Assistant Ticket Agent at Mountain House, Duncansville, Blair County, Pennsylvania. This was then an unimportant district, but the young operator's intelligence soon won him the esteem of his employers, and it was not long before he was promoted. In February, 1854, when the line was com- 348
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pleted over the mountains and Gallatzin Tunnel had been finished, he was transferred to the General Superintendent's office in Altoona, where, within a short time, he was given charge of the telegraph line. He was made Train Despatcher and General Superintendent's Clerk, and he rapidly mastered all the small details of railroad work and his every spare moment was given to the acquirement of further acquaintance with the business. In 1859 he was sent to Fort Wayne to complete the organization of the Fort Wayne road, and when the Pennsylvania Railroad had concluded its work there he returned to Altoona. This was in 1860, just when the civil strife was about to begin, and soon afterward he was appointed Superintendent of the Middle Division, which extended from Conemaugh to Mifflin. After the breaking out of the war, when the Pennsylvania Railroad was re-organized and the Superintendent's Divisions reduced in number from four to three, he was appointed Superintendent of Transportation. All through his service up to that time he had been instrumental in instituting many improvements. As Superintendent of Transpor- tation he was Assistant to the General Superintendent, acting for him and taking charge of any of the divisions during the absence or illness of the Superintendents in charge. It was because of this that Mr. Pitcairn had the responsibility of the charge of the Middle Division from Altoona to Harrisburg, and the Pittsburg Division from Pittsburg to Altoona, in addition to his duties in the Transportation Department in 1862 and 1863.
During the war Mr. Pitcairn, by his clever management of the company's affairs, succeeded in keeping up its splendid system ; and, notwithstanding the difficulties which beset most rail- road companies at that time, the division and branches under his care were maintained on schedule time. For three months after the battle of Antietam he had charge of the Pittsburg and Middle Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and for part of the time had charge of the Franklin Branch from Chambersburg to Hagers- town, and the movement of trains over the Cumberland Valley Railroad. In 1863, for about the same length of time, and during the battle of Gettysburg, he again had charge of the Pittsburg
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and Middle Division in addition to his onerous duties as Superin- tendent of Transportation. It was at this time that Mr. Pitcairn more thoroughly than ever demonstrated his ability to cope with the situations, trying though they were, which the unfortunate circumstances of the Civil War brought about. His management of the facilities of the railroad and his judgment in making train connections at dangerous points won for him high commendation, both from his superiors in the railroad company and from the military authorities who were so vitally interested. In January, 1865, Mr. Pitcairn was sent to Pittsburg as Superintendent of the Pittsburg Division of the great Pennsylvania Railroad system, which even at that time had reached a remarkable growth. Some years after, the position of General Agent at Pittsburg was added to his other duties, and he was gradually promoted in recognition of his services until he held an office of high importance in the company. Mr. Pitcairn has been the General Agent and Superin- tendent of the Pittsburg Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad ever since, and he is known throughout the State as one of its best railroad men. Mr. Pitcairn's reputation in Pittsburg is that of a business man of high integrity, while in the social world he is highly popular.
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SUTHERLAND M. PREVOST.
UCH truth there is in the statement that opportunity often makes the man; but eminence in any depart- ment of human industry has never been attained without superior ability and individual merit. The development of the vast coal and iron fields of Pennsylvania and the consequent and almost simultaneous exten- sion of the great railway lines have not only served to multiply the riches of the Keystone State, but they have also been instru- mental in developing some of the Commonwealth's greatest men, in bringing out their latent but nevertheless sterling qualities. Sutherland M. Prevost is one of the few men who have eagerly seized every opportunity thus presented, and, by tireless energy and signal ability, risen to positions of prominence. Mr. Prevost comes of a family which, both intellectually and socially, gave him a splendid beginning in life, yet to his own persevering industry does he mainly owe his pronounced success.
SUTHERLAND MALLET PREVOST was born in Philadelphia on October 4, 1845. He comes of an old Huguenot family whose records go back seven hundred years. Upon the revocation of the Edict of Nantes they took up their residence in Switzerland. His great-grandfather, Paul Henri Mallet Prevost, a banker of Geneva, was a nephew of General Augustin Prevost, distinguished for his defense of Savannah during the Revolutionary War, and a cousin of Sir George Prevost, a son of Augustin's, commander of the British forces in Canada, and Governor-General of Nova Scotia. Upon the breaking out of the French Revolution, Paul Henri retired from business and joined the French army as Commissary General on the staff of Dumouriez. In 1794 he came to this
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country and settled in Alexandria, Hunterdon County, New Jersey. As several members of his family, and a number of his army comrades followed him, the place became known as "Frenchtown," which name it bears to-day. Both Mr. Prevost's grandfather, Andrew M. Prevost, and his father, Charles M. Prevost, were well known citizens of Philadelphia. The former was a Colonel in the War of 1812, and the latter was Colonel and Brevet Brigadier- General in the War of the Rebellion.
Mr. Prevost chose as his profession Civil Engineering, into the practice of which he entered in 1864. From this date until 1871 he was actively engaged in making preliminary surveys and locating and constructing new lines of railroads, some of which have since come under his executive management as an operating official. During this period he assisted in the construction and development of the Philadelphia and Erie Railroad, the Northern Central Rail- way, the Western Pennsylvania Railroad, the Atlantic and Great Western Railroad, the Wilmington and Reading Railroad (now the Wilmington and Northern), and the New Jersey West Line Railroad (now a portion of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western System).
On January 1, 1871, Mr. Prevost's splendid efforts having brought him to the notice of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company's officials, he was enrolled in the service of that great organization as Assistant Engineer of Maintenance of Way on the Philadelphia Division. In August, 1874, he was made Superintendent of the Bedford Division, and continued to fill the position of Superin- tendent of various divisions until October 1, 1882, when he was made General Superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad Divi- sion. While in this office he indicated the possession of such a high order of executive ability that he was marked for promotion, which occurred on May 1, 1885, when he was made General Super- intendent of Transportation of the Pennsylvania Railroad System east of Pittsburg and Erie. For a period of eight years he served with honor and distinction in that office, and finally, on March I, 1893, was advanced by the Company to the important post of General Manager of that system, a position which is obtained only through merit, ability and indomitable energy.
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Upon the reorganization of the Company after the death of President Roberts, in February, 1897, Mr. Prevost was promoted to the office of Third Vice-President in charge of the traffic and transportation interests of the system.
While Mr. Prevost was General Superintendent of Transpor- tation the Johnstown flood occurred, and the widespread devasta- tion of the company's property entailed enormous efforts on the part of every official. Most of the movements to secure the clear- ing of the system were under the direction of Mr. Prevost, and then, perhaps more than at any other time, he evinced the pos- session of those qualities which place him in the lead of pro- gressive railroad managers. His extensive knowledge of practical railroad work, and his familiarity with the entire Pennsylvania Railroad system eminently fit him for the discharge of the important duties now incumbent upon him. He has a calm temperament that never ruffles, is a man of unquestioned ability and most excellent judgment, and is cool in action, prompt, untir- ing, energetic and industrious. He combines qualities which make him on officer of unusual character, and his sterling honesty and fair dealing, together with a charitable inclination of mind and kindly expression in speech, have made him very popular with employés of all grades, and the public of all classes.
CHARLES E. PUGH.
T HE life and character of Charles Edmund Pugh, Second Vice-President of the Pennsylvania Rail- road, offer to young men of the day many points for profitable comparison and suggestions for imi- tation.
CHARLES EDMUND PUGH was born on February 25, 1841, in Unionville, Chester County, Pennsylvania; he is the son of Elijah Pugh and Eliza Taylor Pugh, both of Welsh extraction. They were members of the Society of Friends, and were people of character and refinement. The boy received the groundwork of his education in the district school, which was extended by a course of study at the State Normal School, at Millersville, Lan- caster County, Pennsylvania. Leaving here, he entered his father's office, where he received an excellent knowledge of the methods involved in the transaction of a large mercantile busi- ness and gained some insight into the first principles governing transportation. On October 1, 1859, being then less than nineteen years of age, he entered the service of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, at Newport, Perry County, Pennsylvania, in an humble position. He immediately showed quickness of comprehension and fertility of resource in high degree, in addition to good judg- ment, self-reliance and industry. As a result he was, after several years, made passenger conductor. This work he did for six months. Next, in 1864, he was appointed train dispatcher of the Philadelphia Division ; six years later, August 1, 1870, he was made General Agent at Philadelphia. The confidence placed in his executive ability by the company was confirmed in 1876, when he managed the transportation of the great Centennial crowds with 354
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such smoothness and dispatch as to excite enthusiastic praise from American and foreign railroad men. The handling of such an immense volume of travel was a task that even in war times had never been undertaken in America, even the highest officers of the road hesitating. To Mr. Pugh, however, the problem presented no especial difficulties. He chose his subordinates with greatest care and after a personal observation of their powers, a principle of organization that has run through all his railroad management.
During the period covered by the Exhibition over three mil- lions of passengers arrived at and departed from the stations under his charge without the occurrence of a single accident. Mr. Pugh may fairly be said to have exercised an influence akin to high generalship, in that he not only laid down the broad lines on which the work was to be prosecuted, and worked out many of the more important details, but his personal force was great enough to animate an army of men and make of them an effec- tive machine. Mr. Pugh has developed in rare degree the ability to organize men and make his will theirs. It is a power based on knowledge of human nature and on force of character. Great- ness of heart, winning personality and natural charm act as aids. To the possession of these natural forces is to be attributed the unusual personal regard which has always been felt for Mr. Pugh by his co-workers. As he arose to higher positions, this feeling followed him. In 1882, while General Manager, he originated and had worked out, under his direction, a plan making financial provision for the families of employés rendered unable to work by sickness, accident or death. This plan led to the formation of the Pennsylvania Railroad Voluntary Relief Department. It now includes over forty thousand members on the lines east of Pitts- burg and Erie, and, because of its beneficial working in this terri- tory, has been extended to the lines west of Pittsburg.
On April 1, 1879, Mr. Pugh was made General Superin- tendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad Division; on October 1, 1882, General Manager; and, March 1, 1893, Third Vice-President, which position he held until, on February 10, 1897, he was pro- moted to the office of Second Vice-President. As Third Vice-
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President he had charge of the whole Transportation Department of the Pennsylvania lines, under the occasional supervision of the First Vice-President. In his post of Second Vice-President he continues most of his old duties. He exercises a special super- vision over the disbursement of the Transportation Departments of all the Pennsylvania lines east of Pittsburg and Erie, and makes frequent suggestions of means for their improvement. He has general supervision of all construction work, and, owing to his expertness in transportation matters, continues his care of this department. In the absence of the President and First Vice- President, he acts as President.
In private life Mr. Pugh has won many devoted friends by his generous disposition and by a heart which welcomes and returns friendship. With all classes of men, the naturally cordial ten- dencies of his nature have met with hearty response; those under him have known him as one ready to help, and those by his side have found him true.
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SAMUEL REA.
MONG those who have gained honorable distinction in the construction and development of the great railway systems of Pennsylvania, Mr. Samuel Rea has borne a conspicuous part. Many of the import- ant works suggested by him and carried out under his direction have invariably served to promote the general rail- way interests of the country.
SAMUEL REA was born in Hollidaysburg, Blair County, Penn- sylvania, September 21, 1855. His mother is a daughter of Thomas Blair Moore, of that county ; and his father, James D. Rea, who died in 1868, was a well known resident of Hollidaysburg. His grandfather, John Rea, of Chambersburg, Franklin County, Penn- sylvania, was an officer in the War of the Revolution, and also in the War of 1812, and was a member of Congress from 1803 to 18II, and from 1813 to 1815. His great-grandfather, Samuel Rea, emigrated to this country from the north of Ireland, 1754-1755, first stopping in Chester County, later in Lancaster County, and finally settled in Franklin (then Cumberland) County. Mr. Rea had very little schooling. Following the death of his father he obtained employment for a short time in a general store, but he was practically brought up on the Pennsylvania Railroad, his first work being in the Engineering Department, in 1871, as chainman and rodman on the Morrison's Cove, Williamsburg and Bloom- field branches. He entered the office of the Hollidaysburg Iron and Nail Company early in 1874, in a clerical capacity, but in the following year was again attached to an engineering corps of the Pennsylvania Railroad, stationed at Connellsville. From 1875 to 1877 he was Assistant Engineer in the construction of the chain
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suspension bridge over the Monongahela River, at Pittsburg, and upon its completion became Assistant Engineer of the Pitts- burg and Lake Erie Railroad, then under construction, remain- ing until the road was completed. In 1879 he was Assistant Engineer on the extension of the Pittsburg, Virginia and Charleston Railway (an important leased line of the Pennsylvania Railroad), of which, thirteen years afterwards, he became and still continues President. From 1879 to 1883 Mr. Rea was in charge of surveys and of the re-construction of the Western Pennsylvania Railroad, under the late J. N. DuBarry, then Assistant to the Presi- dent, and afterwards Vice-President of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. In 1883 Vice-President DuBarry called Mr. Rea to Phila- delphia as his immediate assistant, which position he held until 1888, when he was made Assistant to the Second Vice-President. This office he resigned, in 1889, to go to Baltimore as the Vice-President of the Maryland Central Railway Company, and Chief Engineer of the Baltimore Belt Railroad, the latter a comprehensive surface and underground double-track connecting railroad through that city, which he located and put under construction for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company. In 1891, on account of ill-health, he resigned and left Baltimore, doing no active work for a year. After an absence of three years from the Pennsylvania Railroad, Mr. Rea was chosen by that Company, on May 25, 1892, Assistant to the President, a position which had for many years remained unfilled. On the day of his appointment he left for London, where he made an examination of, and special report on, the new under- ground electric railways then constructed and proposed.
After the death of Vice-President DuBarry, in 1892, Mr. Rea was assigned certain of his duties, which, upon the re-organization of the staff, became permanent. As an incident of his supervision of the corporate work of the subsidiary companies of the Penn- sylvania Railroad Company east of Pittsburg, Mr. Rea is either the President or a Director of about one hundred of these com- panies. Following the election of Frank Thomson as President of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, Mr. Rea, on February IO, 1897, was appointed First Assistant to the President. Mr.
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Rea is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, and of the Institution of Civil Engineers of London. He is the author of "The Railways Terminating in London," a work evidencing much study and laborious personal investigation of the physical and financial condition of the English railway systems. While taking no active part in its direction, he was for about ten years a member of the firm of Rea Brothers & Company, bankers and brokers, of Pittsburg, and still retains his membership in the New York Stock Exchange. He has for many years been interested in the project to bridge the North River from Hoboken to New York City, and thus connect the metropolis with the railroads which now reach it by ferriage from the New Jersey side, and was one of the incorporators named in the Act of Congress authorizing the formation of the North River Bridge Company. In the consolidation of the West Jersey and Camden and Atlantic Railroad companies with several other lines, thus forming the present West Jersey and Seashore Railroad Company, Mr. Rea was confronted by opinions, gained by a larger experience than his own, that it was impracticable; but, at his request, the late President Roberts authorized him to effect it, and within one year the consolidation was satisfactorily consummated.
Mr. Rea's extended and varied experience as engineer, broker, the student of financial questions generally, of railroad accounts and reports and their analysis, coupled with his additional expe- rience in the organization of corporations, re-organizing and con- solidating railroad companies, and his familiarity with the laws acquired in the conduct of this character of work, ranks him as an authority.
In 1879 Mr. Rea married Mary M. Black, of Pittsburg, the youngest daughter of George Black, a prominent iron manufac- turer of western Pennsylvania and, at the time of his death, in 1872, a Director of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. Mr. and Mrs. Rea have two children.
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JOHN R. READ.
OHN R. READ is a member of the Bar of Penn- sylvania of recognized standing, a public spirited citizen, whose ability and worth have been tested in the service of his native city and State and of his country, and a Democrat whose advice and coun- sel have been frequently sought and always respected in the local, State and national councils of his party. MR. READ was born in Philadelphia, January 15, 1843. He was educated at private schools and academies, studied law with St. George Tucker Campbell, and was admitted to the Bar in February, 1864. He formed a partner- ship with Silas W. Pettit, under the firmn name of Read & Pettit, in 1872. They have made a special study of railroad and other corporation law, and have been eminently successful. Mr. Read is attorney for the Western Union Telegraph Company, Commer- cial Exchange of Philadelphia, General Electric Company, and many other corporations. He was a member of the Constitutional Convention of Pennsylvania in 1873, and on the Committee which secured the adoption of the Constitution by the people. During 1878, 1879 and 1880, as First Assistant District Attorney of Phil- adelphia, to which office he was appointed by Henry S. Hagert, he either took part in or prosecuted nearly all of the important criminal cases. In March, 1888, Mr. Read was appointed United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania by Mr. Cleveland. He tried, perhaps, a greater number of notable cases than had any previous incumbent of that office. The Secretary of the Treasury, though differing with him in politics, selected Mr. Read to visit Europe to take testimony in an important case of alleged frauds in the importation of wool.
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When, in his second term, Mr. Cleveland had to name a Col- lector of Customs at Philadelphia, he found Mr. Read endorsed for this position by the Democratic State and city organizations, nearly the entire Pennsylvania delegation to the Democratic National Convention, and many other leading Democrats. The appointment was also urged by large numbers of business men and other repre- sentative citizens. Mr. Cleveland once more called Mr. Read to an important post, and, on March 22, 1894, he was sworn in as Collector. Shortly after he took charge of the office, over one hundred and fifty leading bankers, merchants . and professional men joined in giving a testimonial dinner in his honor. Mr. Read re-organized the force of employés, and introduced strict business principles in the conduct of the office, and his administration has made a favorable impression, especially with the business interests. Special agents who made an examination of the office during Mr. Read's term, in their report to the Secretary of the Treasury, said :
We desire to commend the general efficiency of the service and its excellent management. The Customs laws and regulations are observed with fidelity, the interests of the Customs revenue carefully maintained, and every proper facility given to the rapidly increasing commercial interests. . . . This admirable condition of affairs is principally due to the ability and experience of the head of the service, the Collector of the Port, and the close attention and direction given by this officer to the various details, as well as to the character of the subordinates he has retained and appointed.
An effort by Republican politicians, in July, 1897, to have President Mckinley remove Mr. Read before the expiration of his term, in order that they might get the office, met with vigorous opposition. Members of the Commercial and Maritime exchanges, Board of Trade, Trades League, and other bodies of kindred interests, regardless of political affiliations, strongly commended Mr. Read's administration to the President, and protested against the proposed action. The Public Ledger said, editorially :
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