Worcester, Edwin Dean, , New York 1828 1904 Male Railroad Executive railroad official, born in Albany, N. Y. , was the son of Eldad and Sarah (Chickering) Worcester and a descendant of William Worcester who had emigrated from England and settled in Salisbury, Massachussets, by 1640.
Eldad Worcester was a lawyer and Edwin as a boy spent much time in his father's office copying law papers.
When he was fifteen his formal schooling was ended by the death of his father.
In 1853 the ten railroad companies whose lines extended from Albany to Buffalo were consolidated into the New York Central Railroad, and Worcester was called in by Corning to assist in solving the many problems of accounting and procedure that arose in connection with the project.
In 1867 cornelius Vanderbilt, 1794-1877 [q. v. ], took active control of the company, and thereafter Worcester was closely associated with him.
This position he retained until his death.
In the lease of the Harlem Railroad and in the reorganization of the Lake Shore he was an active participant and he became treasurer of the Lake Shore in 1873.
He negotiated the terms under which the first exclusive "fast mail" train was operated between New York and Chicago.
In 1883 he added the vice-presidency of the Lake Shore and of the Michigan Central to his other functions.
[Railroad Gazette, June 17, 1904, general news section; Thirty-fifth Ann.
Report of the .
N. Y. Central and Hudson River Railroad Company (1904); "Report of the Select Committee on Transportation Routes to the Seaboard, " Senate Report 307, pt.
2, 43 Cong. , 1 Sess.
(1874); S. A. Worcester, The Descendants of Rev. William Worcester (1914); Who's Who in America, 1903-05; N. Y. Times, June 14, 1904. ]
On Apr. 30, 1855, Worcester married Mary Abigail Low of Albany, who survived him, with their daughter and four of their six sons.
On Apr. 30, 1855, Worcester married Mary Abigail Low of Albany, who survived him, with their daughter and four of their six sons.
In 1852 he entered his brother's law office in Albany, but was also employed occasionally in the Albany City Bank, of which Erastus Corning q.v. was president, and in the Commercial Bank of Albany.
His early business activities included a clerkship in his uncle's grocery store and later in the law office of Rufus W. Peckham q.v..
