Background
Joseph was born on March 15, 1843 in Mercer County, Pa. He was the son of James and Rebecca Torrence, natives of that state. He left home at the age of nine to live with a distant relative.
Joseph was born on March 15, 1843 in Mercer County, Pa. He was the son of James and Rebecca Torrence, natives of that state. He left home at the age of nine to live with a distant relative.
For three years he worked for a blast-furnace operator at Sharpsburg, Pa. , then went to Brier Hill, Mahoning County, Ohio, where he learned the blacksmith trade. Until the outbreak of the Civil War he worked around the blast furnaces in this region, becoming an assistant foreman.
In August 1862 he enlisted in the 105th Ohio Infantry, but was wounded at the battle of Perryville, Ky. , in October, and in January retired from service. He later joined the volunteer forces raised for the pursuit of the Confederate raider John Hunt Morgan. After leaving the military service he entered the employ of Reis, Brown & Berger of New Castle, Lawrence County, Pa. , operators of rolling mills, blast furnaces, and coal mines. After some five years in charge of the sale of their furnace products, he resigned to go South as an expert rebuilder of iron works.
In 1869 he went to Bridgeport, Ill. , to build a furnace for the Chicago Iron Company; the following year he became connected with the Joliet Iron & Steel Company; and in 1874 he settled in Chicago as consulting engineer for the Green Bay & Bangor Furnace Company. From this time forward he was identified with the Chicago region.
He was one of the organizers of the Joseph H. Brown Iron & Steel Company, which about 1881 was sold to the Calumet Iron & Steel Company. He purchased a half interest in the rolling mills at Evansville, Ind. , in 1884, and the following year moved the business to Hammond, Ind. In 1886 he helped organize the Chicago & Calumet Terminal Railway Company, the beginning of the elaborate system of belt lines which now surround Chicago. About this time he secured title to 1, 000 acres of land in Lake County, Ind. , on which the town of East Chicago was developed; he was active in securing a congressional appropriation for the improvement of the Calumet River.
Another of the enterprises he promoted was the Chicago Elevated Terminal Railway Company, begun in 1890, to bring main line railroads into the city without grade crossings; he was a pioneer in this work of track elevation.
In 1874 Torrence was commissioned colonel of the 2nd Regiment of the Illinois National Guard, and from 1876 until his resignation in 1881, was brigadier-general. During the riots accompanying the railroad strikes of 1877, he was made civil and military dictator of the city and county and succeeded in restoring order without great loss of life or serious property damage.
He died in Chicago at the age of fifty-three.
A Republican in politics, he toured through many states in company with Gen. John A. Logan during the Blaine-Logan campaign of 1884.
He was a man of large physique and capable of great endurance.
On September 11, 1872, Torrence married Elizabeth Norton, daughter of Judge Jesse O. Norton of Chicago. They had one child, a daughter. Torrence survived his wife five years, .
