Background
Strickland Kneass, the son of William and Mary Turner (Honeyman) Kneass, was born on July 14, 1821 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. His older brother, Samuel Honeyman Kneass, was a civil engineer and architect.
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Strickland Kneass, the son of William and Mary Turner (Honeyman) Kneass, was born on July 14, 1821 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. His older brother, Samuel Honeyman Kneass, was a civil engineer and architect.
Kneass received his first schooling in the classical academy of James P. Espy in Philadelphia. About the time he had completed his studies in Espy's academy, his brother Samuel was laying out the Delaware & Schuylkill Canal, and was soon engaged in constructing the Philadelphia & Wilmington Railroad. Since the younger Kneass had determined to become an engineer, his brother took him as an assistant on both these projects, and thus he received practical training in his profession before he had taken a collegiate course. When the railroad to Wilmington was completed, he entered the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York, where he was graduated in 1839 with the degree of civil engineer, taking the highest honors in his class.
Strickland's first position was as assistant engineer and topographer on the Pennsylvania state survey for a railway between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh. This project proving premature, he went to Washington, where he became a draftsman in the bureau of engineering of the United States Navy. In 1842 he prepared maps for the special British commission on the northeast boundary between the United States and the Canadian provinces, and subsequently was employed by the federal government on the general map of the boundary survey.
When, in 1847, the survey across Pennsylvania for the laying of the Pennsylvania Railroad was begun, he was chosen by the chief engineer of the road, J. Edgar Thomson, as one of his assistants. In this capacity he displayed exceptional technical skill in constructing the roads. Later he was promoted to be principal first assistant engineer, and designed the shops and engine-house erected by the company at Altoona.
In 1853 he resigned to become associate engineer on the North Pennsylvania Railroad, but remained only two years, accepting in 1855 the position of chief engineer and surveyor of the consolidated City of Philadelphia. He was twice reelected for periods of five years, and to him fell the work of organizing the department and designing an entirely new drainage system for the enlarged city. Following closely upon the extension of the city limits came numerous projects for street railways in the city, and for many of these companies Kneass acted as chief engineer.
During the Civil War, in 1862, when it was feared that Lee would invade Pennsylvania, he was called upon to make surveys of the Susquehanna River between Duncan's Island and Havre de Grace, and to assist Alexander Dallas Bache in the preparation of maps of the environs of Philadelphia with a view to locating fortifications. In 1872 he was persuaded by J. Edgar Thomson, then president of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, to accept the position of assistant to the president. In 1880 he was chosen president of the Pennsylvania & Delaware Railroad Company, the Trenton Railroad Company, the Columbia & Port Deposit & Western Railroad Company, and a director of the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati & St. Louis line.
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In 1878, Kneass was elected president of the Eastern Railroad Association. He was also a member of various technical and scientific societies, he was for a period president of the Engineers' Club of Philadelphia.
On August 17, 1853, Kneass married Margaretta Sybilla Bryan, a granddaughter of George Bryan.