Isaac Craig Buckhout was born on November 7, 1830 in Eastchester, New York, on the old Gouverneur Morris estate of which his father was manager. He descended from an old Knickerbocker family and the son of Jacob and Charlotte Eveline (De Val) Buckhout.
Early in life Isaac decided to become a civil engineer and by hard work got enough money together to take an engineering course under a Prof. Davies.
At seventeen Isaac Buckhout began the practical experience which was to lead him into engineering prominence in spite of his short life. He was fortunate in the tutelage through which he laid the foundations of his profession.
In 1848, when he first entered the employ of the Harlem Railroad as a rodman, he worked under Allan Campbell, a civil engineer who later became president of the railroad. Shortly afterward he engaged in surveying at Paterson, New Jersey, where his chief was Colonel J. W. Allen.
In a short while Buckhout rose to the position of engineer and superintendent of the waterworks at Paterson but he gave this up to return to New York as city surveyor. In 1853, however, he returned to the employ of the Harlem Railroad and it was in railroad work that he achieved outstanding prominence in his day.
A board of four engineers was appointed by the state legislature when the charter for this "Improvement" was granted, and Isaac Buckhout was put in charge of the work. He resigned his position as superintendent of the New York and Harlem Railroad in order to give his time completely as engineer in charge of the new work. It was his literal devotion to duty here that caused his untimely death. Standing day after day in the marshland that is now New York's exclusive East Sixties, he contracted acute rheumatism and typhoid fever which resulted in his death at his home in White Plains.
Buckhout also drew up plans for an underground railroad to run from Grand Central Depot to City Hall, and for another underground road in Brooklyn.
He had been appointed a member of the Committee on Rapid Transit shortly before his death.
Buckhout's chief contribution at the early start of his career included the construction of an aqueduct over the Harlem flats and of a bridge over the Harlem River. But he will mainly be remembered for the old Grand Central Depot, which he designed, and the "Fourth Avenue Improvement, " the name given at the time to a new line to run from the Harlem River to Fortysecond St. , New York City.
As a boy he was of a studious nature and was considered to be somewhat of a mathematical genius.
He was an engineer whose advice was sought not only because of his innate practical ability and the indefatigable care which he took with details but also because of the qualities of manhood which made him a warm personal friend and inspired trust and confidence in those with whom he came in contact.
In personal appearance he so much resembled Henry Ward Beecher that he was often mistaken for him.
No record whether he was married.
