Dewitt Clinton Haskin

Col. Dewitt Clinton Haskin (circa 1824 – July 17, 1900) was an American engineer whose innovations in tunnel construction allowed tunnels under the Hudson River to Manhattan to be completed.

Haskin gained experience in California on construction of the Union Pacific Railway. 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.[1] 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,[2] lawyer William Gibbs McAdoo completed the project in 1908.[3] (See Uptown Hudson Tubes.)

Without much doubt he was named after DeWitt Clinton.

References

  1. ^ 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. ISBN 0442040407. 
  2. ^ "Progress of the Great Railway Tunnels Under the Hudson River Between New York and Jersey City". Scientific American. 1890-11-01. http://catskillarchive.com/rrextra/tuhud1.Html. 
  3. ^ Cudahy, Brian J. Rails Under the Mighty Hudson: The Story of the Hudson Tubes, the Pennsy Tunnels and Manhattan Transfer. Fordham Univ Press, ISBN 0-8232-2190-3

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