H. Walter Webb

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H. Walter Webb (1856-1919) was son of Gen. James Watson Webb (1802-1884) and a railway executive for the New York Central Railroad under Cornelius Vanderbilt and Chauncey Depew.

Webb was head of his class in the Columbia College School of Mines, and after graduation studied law, passed the bar, and briefly practiced the profession. Thereafter he soon became active in Wall Street banking and brokerage. He drifted into the railway business almost by accident through his brother, Dr. William Seward Webb, married to a daughter of William H. Vanderbilt, became interested in the Wagner Palace Car Company which the Vanderbilts controlled. When Webster Wagner, the company's president was suddenly crushed between two of his own cars, Dr. Webb became president of the company and invited his brother to join it.

Webb was an advocate of fast railway travel and ran what was then the fastest railway train in the world, averaging nearly 60 miles per hour over 450 miles. In 1893 he made a bold and ultimately true prediction for the next hundred years: By 1993, a traveler will be able to have his breakfast in New York City and his evening meal in Chicago.

Webb lived in Scarborough, New York, was Show Chairman of the Westminster Kennel Club (1880-1882), subscriber to the Blackstone Memorial (1891), and helped dedicate a bronze statue of Christopher Columbus in Central Park (1894).