Background
Theodore was born on March 4, 1826 in Bridgeport, Connecticut, United States, the son of an Episcopal clergyman, Henry R. Judah.
Theodore was born on March 4, 1826 in Bridgeport, Connecticut, United States, the son of an Episcopal clergyman, Henry R. Judah.
Judah studied at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York.
After leaving the Institute he was employed by the New Haven, Hartford & Springfield Railroad, the Connecticut River Railway, and the Erie Canal. He also erected a large bridge at Vergennes, planned and built the Niagara Gorge Railroad, and was for a time in charge of construction on the line of the Buffalo & New York Railway, now a part of the Erie system. In 1854 he was called to the Pacific Coast as chief engineer of the Sacramento Valley Railroad, a local project completed in 1856 from Sacramento east to the town of Folsom.
Leaving the employ of Sacramento Valley Railroad shortly before the line reached Folsom, he engaged for a time in engineering and construction work for other railroad companies. During these years he was frequently in the California mountains, and considered plans for a railroad which should run from California eastward to an ultimate junction with the railroad systems of the Mississippi Valley states. The desirability of such an enterprise was recognized upon the Pacific Coast, and the location of its western terminus, the general character of the route to be followed, and the extent to which the federal government might be induced to provide funds for its completion were subjects discussed in the state legislature, in the press, and in conventions called for this specific purpose in 1853 and in 1859.
Judah published a pamphlet in 1857 upon the subject of a transcontinental railroad that was circulated among members of Congress at Washington. In the latter year, after his return to California, he announced that he had discovered a practicable railroad route across the Sierras, and solicited private subscriptions to enable him to perfect the organization of a company which should undertake the work. The following year he was able to persuade Collis P. Huntington, Leland Stanford, and certain of their friends to join him in the organization of the Central Pacific Railroad Company, and to contribute to the expenses of an instrumental survey across the mountains. The survey proved satisfactory, Judah was again sent to Washington to seek national support, and after the passage of the federal act of July 1, 1862, he returned to California to direct construction.
Judah, rather than Huntington, Stanford, Hopkins, or Crocker is to be credited with the initiation and successful promotion of the first realized plan for the construction of a railroad across the Sierra Nevada mountains. He did not, unfortunately, survive to see the completion of his undertaking, and it is possible that he would not have remained with the Central Pacific even if he had lived. Friction between Judah and the Huntington group appears to have led the "Big Four" to buy the former out in 1863 for the sum of $100, 000, at the same time that they gave him an option to purchase their respective shares for a similar amount each. Judah sailed for the East to seek other financial support, but contracted typhoid fever while crossing the Isthmus, and died soon after his arrival at New York.
His record gives evidence of imagination and capacity for sustained enthusiasm, and also of a high degree of technical ability.
On May 10, 1847, Judah married Anna Ferona Pierce, daughter of a local merchant in Greenfield, Massachussets.