Henry Farnam was an American philanthropist and railroad president.
Background
Henry Farnam was born in Scipio, Cayuga County, New York, was the descendant of Connecticut stock. His parents, Jeffrey Amherst Farnam and Mercy Tracy, belonged to families which had left the Thames Valley in the eighteenth century to establish pioneer farms farther west; and on such a farm he was born and brought up.
Education
Studying and teaching in the village school, reading—by the light of the winter fire to save the expense of a candle— what text-books in mathematics he could procure.
Career
He prepared himself as a surveyor, and was employed in that capacity on the Erie Canal from 1821 to 1824.
The canal, completed from New Haven to Farmington in 1828, and later extended to Northampton, never realized the dreams of its projectors.
Of small dimensions (taking boats only of twenty to twenty-five tons), cheaply built (two-thirds of the sixty locks were of wood), it counted a year fortunate when it collected, from the scant traffic, tolls sufficient to cover ordinary maintenance.
Breaches were frequent, occasioned by freshets and, so it was charged, by malicious injury.
The engineer was out day and night, rain or shine (particularly in rain), driving in his buggy from one point to another of the canal.
In his later years, after a broken night, he would often say, “I have been spending the whole night repairing a breach in the old canal. ”
Work on the canal brought Farnam into intimate relations with Joseph E. Sheffield, a man of property and considerable business connections, a large stockholder in the canal and contributor of most of the capital to the railroad which succeeded it.
The two were associated in a plan to build a railroad from New Haven to New York, obtained a charter in 1844, but found only one other individual willing at that time to subscribe to stock, and had to abandon the enterprise.
In the twenty-five years devoted to the New Haven-Northanipton line Farnam gained little but experience.
In 1850 he was invited to Chicago, a town approaching a population of 30, 000 but still lacking railroad connections with the outside world.
Bridging the Mississippi was resented by the river interests and led to many suits.
Early reports of the Chicago & Rock Island Railroad show that the contractors were given a right of way and had to provide practically everything else to make a railroad.
Not only did they do the grading, build the bridges, import and lay the iron rails; they also built the stations and freight houses, built the machine shops and equipped them with engines, machinery, and tools, and supplied the rolling stock, from locomotives to handcars.
They were paid mostly in bonds and stock, so that they had to finance as well as build the road.
They also organized the operating force, and Farnam shortly assumed the presidency of the Chicago & Rock Island, and held that place until his retirement in 1863, in his sixtieth year.
After several years of travel abroad he returned to New Haven, where he made notable gifts to Yale College and many civic causes.
Achievements
Politics
To defend one of these Farnam engaged Abraham Lincoln, whose argument won the famous Rock Island Bridge case.
Views
Of him Roah Porter said: “His public spirit was a passion. ”
He combined the homely virtue of his Puritan ancestors with the boldness and breadth of view of the modern business leader, and as a pioneer in railroad construction made a permanent contribution to the development of the country.
Personality
He got that in full measure, and established a reputation for technical competence, business ability, sound judgment, and integrity.
Connections
In 1839 he married Ann Sophia Whitman of Farmington.