General Adna Anderson was Engineer-in-Chief of the Northern Pacific Railroad from 1880 to 1888. He was born in Ridgeway, New York, July 25, 1827, and died May 15, 1889, in Philadelphia.
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Anderson began his railway career in 1847, as chainman on the New York and New Haven Railroad. From October 1847 to November 1848, he was assistant engineer of the Connecticut River Railroad; from November 1848 to September 1848 assistant engineer on the Mobile and Ohio; from that date to March 1850 assistant engineer on the Ashuelot Railroad in New Hampshire. Afterward he was successively resident engineer of the Michigan Southern and Northern Indiana; locating engineer of the Mobile and Ohio; chief engineer on the Tennessee and Alabama; chief engineer and superintendent of the Edgefield and Kentucky; and for a short time chief engineer of the Henderson and Nashville. When the Edgefield and Kentucky failed, General Anderson was appointed receiver.
When the American Civil War broke out General Anderson offered his services to the United States government, and was made assistant engineer and chief of the Construction Corps of the Army of the Potomac in Virginia. In the following year he was made general superintendent of Government Railroads of the Military Division of the Mississippi. From November 1864 to July 1866 he was chief superintendent and engineer of all the military railroads.
From February to May 1867, he was chief engineer of the Illinois and St. Louis Bridge; afterwards general superintendent of the Kansas Pacific Railway; then vice-president and general manager of the Toledo, Wabash and Western. General Anderson was made president of the LaFayette, Muncie and Bloomington Railroad in 1873; he was appointed receiver of the Chicago, Danville and Vincennes in May 1875; in February 1880 he was made chief engineer of the Northern Pacific Railroad.
In the latter part of 1881 General Anderson took a long and fatiguing journey over the proposed line of the Northern Pacific, making a personal inspection of the proposed route across the backbone of the continent and through what was then the western wilds.
From the observations made on this long journey from Bismarck, North Dakota to Portland, Oregon, General Anderson became satisfied that the general route laid down by the late William Milnor Roberts (a former president of the American Society of Civil Engineers), as the line of the Northern Pacific, was in the main correct, at least so far as the line between the Missouri River and Columbia River was concerned, and on this line, substantially, he went on and completed the road, witnessing the driving of the last spike September 8, 1883.
The main line having been completed from St. Paul to Wallula where junction was formed with the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company’s line, thus making a through line to Portland, the company turned its attention to its Cascade Division, intended to connect its line at some point near the mouth of the Snake River, with Tacoma on Puget Sound. Surveys for this division had been in progress much of the time since March, 1880, and much had been done even previous to that date, at intervals, in the way of reconnaissance and preliminary work. The company desired to build on the best attainable line, but to find this line, with conditions then existing, was a work of great difficulty, requiring time, labor and expense. General Anderson took great interest in all this work, but did not express any final judgment until the autumn of 1883, after all the information was available, when he reported that the line ought to be built through Stampede Pass, believing it to be the route that could be operated at least expense and that it would best protect the company from the encroachments of rival enterprises, which judgment has been fully confirmed by the events of the past two years.
In October, 1886, General Anderson was elected second vice-president of the Northern Pacific, which position, together with that of chief engineer of this road, he held up to January, 1888.
General Anderson married, in 1856, Juliet C. Van Wyck, with whom he had six children. The eldest daughter, Sallie, married United States Navy Lieutenant John C. Fremont, Jr., a son of General John C. Fremont; the oldest son, Philip Van Wyck Anderson, was a civil engineer on the Northern Pacific Railroad.
In May 1889 General Anderson opened an office in New York, at 155 Broadway, where he was engaged in organizing the Gordon Fire Alarm Company and the Steel Car Company. About a year before his death he contracted what is known as mountain fever while on one of his western trips, from which he never entirely recovered.
General Anderson was a quiet and somewhat taciturn man, of absolute integrity and clear headed, impartial judgment. He was a steadfast, kindly friend through evil or good report. His works were managed with honorable motives and without scandal. He served his country during the long War of the Rebellion with honor and fidelity. While he must have had many opportunities to become wealthy in legitimate ways, the fact that he died poor shows that no consideration of self-interest was allowed to influence him a hair’s breadth in his professional duties or in his loyalty to the enterprise he served.[1]
Died—Anderson—Suddenly, at Hotel Lafayette, Philadelphia, on the 15th inst., Gen. Adna Anderson, late Chief Engineer and Second Vice-President of the Northern Pacific Railroad, in the 62d year of his age.
Suicide of Gen. Anderson—Shooting himself in a Philadelphia Hotel—He was a prominent New-York railroad man—No motive known for his deed—By telegraph to the Tribune.
Philadelphia, May 15—General A. Anderson, of New-York City, late last night committed suicide in the Lafayette Hotel, by lodging a bullet in his brain. At about midnight Harry Johnson, a colored bellboy, rushed downstairs to the office and informed the watchman that one of the guests had shot himself. The watchman ran to the fourth floor and burst in the door of a toilet-room, seated in which, with his arms hanging limp by his sides and his head back, was the dead body of a well-dressed and fine-looking man apparently about sixty years old. Beside the body lay a revolver. In the faint light Watchman Price saw a gaping bullet hole in the man’s temple, from which a stream of blood dripped down his cheek and stained his shirt-front. A doctor was summoned, but was too late to be of service. The body was removed to an undertaker’s.
General Anderson arrived at the hotel last Sunday evening and registered as “A. Anderson, New York City.” He took his meals regularly at the hotel, and little was seen of him outside of the dining-room. It was said that on Monday he was seen acting strangely, but no liquors of any kind appear on the books as having been ordered by him in the hotel. The only effects which he had were a black spring overcoat and a small valise containing underwear. Several letters were in his pocket, and a bunch of keys bore the address “A. Anderson, Everett House, Union Square, New York City.” A pass of the Northern Pacific Railroad was inscribed: “For the personal use of General A. Anderson.”
Mr. Maltby, proprietor of the Lafayette Hotel, telegraphed to the Everett House the news of the sad occurrence, and asked for information regarding General Anderson’s family. The reply, which arrived this morning, stated that word had been sent to the General’s widow at her home in Sing Sing, N.Y., and that she or some other member of the family would come on to Philadelphia. The first intimation that the police had regarding the suicide was given them at the Fifth District Station by newspaper men to-day.
A son of General Anderson told the Coroner that he believed his farther to have been insane at the time of the shooting, and could not assign any other cause for the rash act. About a year ago, while engaged in mining, the General contracted what was known as “mountain fever.” This troubled him for some time, and finally developed into brain trouble. On a page of a memorandum book left by General Anderson was written: “I feel a great buzzing in my ears, and a very peculiar feeling in my head. Can this be brain fever?”
Arrangements have been made to ship the body to Washington, whence it will be removed to Georgetown, where the burial will take place. General Anderson leaves a large family.
Mr. Anderson as born at Ridgeway, N.Y., on July 25, 1827. When a young man, his taste for civil engineering made him a chainman in laying out the line of the New York and New Haven Railroad. He left this to become assistant engineer on the Connecticut River Road, afterward serving as resident engineer, chief engineer, superintendent and receiver upon various Southern roads, among them the Mobile and Ohio, the Tennessee and Alabama, the Central Southern, and the Edgefield and Kentucky.
During the last three years of the war General Anderson’s professional skill was placed at the service of the United States Government, which made him a brevet brigadier general. His first duty, which he assumed in June, 1862, was that of assistant engineer and chief of the construction corps of the Army of the Potomac. In February, 1863, he was made chief engineer of the military railroads of Virginia, and after a year’s service in that capacity he was made general superintendent of the Government railroads in the Military Division of the Mississippi. Late in 1864 he was made chief engineer and superintendent of the military railroads of the United States, and held this position until July, 1866.
After the war General Anderson held various important offices on Western railroads. He was best known as the chief engineer, of the Northern Pacific Railroad, with which he was connected from about 1880. In 1886 he was made a second vice-president of the company. About a year and a half ago he retired from the company’s service and since that time he had been occupied largely in pushing certain mechanical inventions, having an office for a time at Liberty St., and afterward in the Stewart Building. Recently he had given up his office as he did not desire to lease it for a while year, and of late he had been transacting his business in the office of a friend at No. 155 Broadway.
Mr. Anderson was possessed of strong qualities and he resisted with great force the attempt to fasten Northern Pacific misfortunes on mistakes of the engineering department. Mr. Anderson proved that his estimates were not wide of the mark and that when there was any difference it was due principally to the orders of the executive department. It may be assumed that in any circumstances he was the victim, for his honesty was never questioned. He could not be induced to join in the efforts to advance Northern Pacific stock although his life was bound up in the completion of the line.
General Anderson’s Public Service. To the Editor of the Tribune. Sir: In the death of General Adna Anderson the country loses a distinguished engineer and a man whose high integrity and aversion to intrigue and pretension make him worthy of praise in this Centennial year. a native of New England, he married in Tennessee, and was practicing his profession there when the war broke out. Entering the service of the National Government, he had general charge of military railroads in the West. When the history of this remarkable part of our military operations is fully written it will reflect great credit upon those who gave talent, fidelity, and strenuous effort without a prospect of gain or glory. Since the war General Anderson has been steadily engaged in the development of our Western railway system, but his most remarkable service was as chief engineer of the Northern Pacific Railroad, which he built through to Puget Sound, overcoming the greatest natural obstacles, and having to contend with the impatience and diverging views of financial promoters, who were after all banking on his sound and ultimately successful work. – New York, May 15, 1889. New-York Daily Tribune, Thursday, May 16, 1889, n.p.
No author. The Biographical Directory of the Railway Officials of America for 1887. Chicago [Ill.]: Railway Age, 1887, p. 17. (See also Clough, Joel Barber.)