Amasa Stone
Amasa Stone, Jr. was an American industrialist who is best remembered for having created a regional railroad empire centered in the U.S. state of Ohio from 1860 to 1883. He gained fame in New England in the 1840s for building hundreds of bridges, most of them Howe truss bridges. After moving into railroad construction in 1848, Stone moved to Cleveland, Ohio, in 1850. Within four years he was a director of the Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati Railroad and the Cleveland, Painesville and Ashtabula Railroad. The latter merged with the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway, of which Stone was appointed director. Stone was also a director or president of numerous railroads in Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Michigan.
Stone played a critical role in helping the Standard Oil company form its monopoly, and he was a major force in the Cleveland banking, steel, and iron industries. Stone's reputation was significantly tarnished after the Ashtabula River railroad bridge, which he designed and constructed, collapsed in 1876 in the Ashtabula River railroad disaster. Stone spent many of his last years engaging in major charitable endeavors. Among the most prominent was his gift which allowed Western Reserve College to relocate from Hudson, Ohio, to Cleveland.
Early life
Amasa Stone, Jr. was born on April 27, 1818, on a farm near Charlton, Massachusetts, to Amasa and Esther Stone. He was the ninth of 10 children, and the third of four sons. His ancestor, Gregory Stone, a yeoman, had emigrated from Ipswich in Suffolk, England, to Massachusetts in 1635 as part of the Puritan migration to New England. His great-grandfather, Jonathan Stone, fought at the Battle of Lexington on April 19, 1775, and in the subsequent American Revolutionary War.Stone worked on the family farm during the growing and harvest seasons, and attended local public schools when not engaged in agricultural labor. At the age of 17, Stone left the farm and moved to Worcester, Massachusetts, where he apprenticed as a carpenter and builder with his older brother. Physically very strong, he swiftly advanced in his trade. Before he was 21 years old, he rose to the role of foreman, and had supervised the erection of several homes in the area as well as a church in East Brookfield.
Fame as a bridge builder
Amasa Stone began working for his brother-in-law, William Howe, in 1839. The following year, Howe was engaged to build a railroad bridge over the Connecticut River in Springfield, Massachusetts. This famous bridge was of a new, influential design—the Howe truss bridge. Howe patented the design in 1840. With the financial support of Azariah Boody, a Springfield businessman, Stone purchased for $40,000 the rights to Howe's patented bridge design in 1842. That same year, the two men formed a bridge-building firm, Boody, Stone & Co., which erected a large number of Howe truss bridges throughout New England.Stone was named construction superintendent of the newly formed New Haven, Hartford & Springfield Railroad in 1845. The demands of his construction business forced him to resign his railroad position in 1846. But later that same year, the NHH&S's bridge over the Connecticut River at Enfield Falls washed out. This bridge carried much of the railroad's traffic, and its quick reconstruction was urgent. The railroad contracted with Stone to rebuild the bridge, which was long. Stone completed the work in just 40 days, much less time than most engineers believed possible. He later considered this remarkable feat the major accomplishment of his construction career. The railroad gave him $1,000 as a bonus in gratitude.
Stone dissolved Boody, Stone & Co. in late 1846 or early 1847. With Howe's business partner, Daniel L. Harris, he purchased the Howe Bridge Works. This firm continued to construct bridges in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island until 1849.
By the time he resettled in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1850, Stone was known as the most eminent bridge builder and railroad contractor in New England.
Cleveland railroading
The CC&C and LS&MS
The Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati Railroad was chartered in 1836. After several false starts at construction, in November 1848 the company finally issued a request for proposals to build the first leg of the line from Cleveland to Columbus, Ohio. Frederick Harbach, a surveyor and engineer for several Ohio railroads, surveyed the route for the new spur in 1847. Stone had worked with Harbach and another railroad engineer, Stillman Witt, while building railroad bridges in New England. Alfred Kelley, an attorney and former state legislator, canal commissioner, banker, and railroad builder, was president of the railway, and he, too, knew Stone well from his railroading days in the east. Kelley and the CC&C managers reached out to Stone, Harbach, and Witt, and asked them to bid on the project. Stone, Harbach, and Witt formed a company in late 1848 to bid on the contract, which they then won. Construction began on the line in November 1849, and the final spike was driven on February 18, 1851. Stone, Harbach, and Witt agreed to take a portion of their pay in the form of stock in the railroad. The stock soared in value as soon as the spur was completed, making Stone very wealthy.In 1849, Stone, Harbach, and Witt also won a contract to build the Bellefontaine and Indiana Railroad. The Indiana portion of the line was finished in 1852, and the Ohio portion in July 1853.
In 1850, Stone was appointed construction superintendent of the CC&C, and he moved to Cleveland. He was named a director of the railroad in 1852.
Stone also became construction superintendent of another railroad in 1850, one that would eventually be known as the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway. The line began in 1833 as a series of small, independent railroads which then combined into larger and larger companies. One of the first of these smaller lines was the Cleveland, Painesville and Ashtabula Railroad, which had been chartered in 1848 to build track from Cleveland to the border with Pennsylvania. Alfred Kelley was one of its directors. On July 26, 1850, the CP&A awarded a contract to build its line to the firm of Stone, Harbach, and Witt. The line was completed in autumn 1852, and Stone was named a director of the railroad in August 1853 at a salary of $4,000 a year. He continued in this position until the corporation's merger into the LS&MS in May 1869, and served as the CP&A's president from August 1858 to March 1859. While Stone served as director, the CP&A leased the Jamestown and Franklin Railroad in March 1864 for 20 years. He oversaw the construction of the Union Depot in Erie, Pennsylvania, in 1866, and became a director of the J&FR in 1868. Stone was again elected a director of the LS&MS in August 1869, and was appointed the LS&MS' general manager in July 1873. The railroad was in financial difficulty by mid-1873, and Stone's appointment was made in large part so that he could stabilize it. Just one month after Stone took over as general manager, he learned that the 1873 dividend had been paid for with a loan from the Union Trust Company. When the economy soured in August, the bank called the loan. The LS&MS almost went into receivership, but Cornelius Vanderbilt repaid the loan out of his own funds. When his health failed in 1875, Stone resigned his position as director and general manager.
Stone remained construction superintendent of the CP&A until July 1853, and of the CC&C until 1854, when he resigned both offices due to poor health. The following year, Stone and Witt signed a contract to clear and grade the Chicago and Milwaukee Railway from Waukegan, Illinois, to the border with Wisconsin. He and Witt then signed a second contract in 1858 to build the track.
Stone added another important railroad executive position when he became director of the Cleveland and Toledo Railroad in June 1859. Directorships for the road lasted a year, and Stone served one term. He was elected again in June 1863 and June 1867, and served as the company's president from January to June 1868. During his last term as director of the line, the CP&A leased the Cleveland & Toledo for 99 years on October 8, 1867, essentially running the railroad. On June 17, 1868, the CP&A changed its name to the Lake Shore Railway, and absorbed the Cleveland & Toledo on February 11, 1869.
Civil War
During the American Civil War, Stone focused almost all his attention on running his railroads for the benefit of the Union war effort, and became a millionaire. He was an ardent supporter of President Abraham Lincoln, and Lincoln consulted with him on both supply and transportation issues. He became a friend of Lincoln's, and raised and supplied troops for Union cause. In 1863, Lincoln offered Stone a brigadier generalship if he would construct a military railway from Kentucky to Knoxville, Tennessee. Stone turned down the generalship and persuaded the president to abandon the project. It was probably while visiting Washington, D.C., during a trip to visit Lincoln that Stone met and became friends with Lincoln's private secretary, John Hay.It became clear during the Civil War that Cleveland's lone railroad station—a small wooden structure built in 1853 at the base of Bath Street on the Cleveland Flats—was not large enough to handle the city's growing rail needs. The station burned to the ground in 1864, and Amasa Stone was tapped by the railroads to build a new station. Stone both designed and oversaw the construction of the luxurious and large Cleveland Union Depot, which opened on November 10, 1866.
By 1868, Stone's annual income had risen to $70,000 a year, and a few years later he owned property worth at least $5 million.
Association with Cornelius Vanderbilt
Cornelius Vanderbilt waged a long and bitter war for control of the New York Central Railroad from 1865 to 1867. The Central, governed by a clique of men known as the "Albany Regency", controlled most of the rail traffic outside of New York City. But Vanderbilt's Hudson River Railroad not only had the only direct link between Albany, New York, and New York City, but it also had the only rail line into lower Manhattan. Vanderbilt won an agreement with the Central to transfer freight to his line. The contract also required the Central to pay the Hudson River Railroad $100,000 a year for keeping extra rolling stock on hand in the summer to handle the increased traffic moving north. A group of New York City investors—led by banker LeGrand Lockwood, American Express and Wells Fargo founder William Fargo, and Michigan Southern and Northern Indiana Railroad president Henry Keep—decided to seek control of the Central. They quickly amassed almost two-thirds of the company's stock, and ousted the "Albany Regency". Keep, elected president of the Central, immediately revoked the yearly payment. An outraged Vanderbilt stopped carrying all Central freight. Steamboats could not move the Central's cargoes because the Hudson River frozen due to a harsh winter. Freight backed up in Albany, and New York City was effectively cut off by rail. The Central's stock price fell. In an attempt to make money off the situation, Keep borrowed a significant amount of shares to sell short. Flooding the market with shares only drove the price further downward, and Vanderbilt and his allies quickly purchased these shares. This forced Keep to pay his lenders out of his own pocket, hurting him financially, and allowed the Vanderbilt group to gain control of the Central. Keep resigned, and Horace Henry Baxter was named president in December 1866. Vanderbilt exerted his power again in December 1867, and had himself named president of the Central.Realizing that the New York Central now depended heavily on connecting lines to reach Midwestern cities like Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and St. Louis, Vanderbilt decided to add Amasa Stone to the Central's board of directors. Stone was first appointed to the board in 1867, and probably served until December 1868. In April 1868, Stone played a major role in bringing together Cornelius Vanderbilt and the oil magnate John D. Rockefeller. Vanderbilt very much wanted the New York Central to carry both raw and refined oil being shipped by Rockefeller. On April 18, 1868, Vanderbilt asked Rockefeller to meet with him. Rockefeller refused, sending only his business card. He believed Vanderbilt would try to charge him high freightage rates, and Rockefeller knew he could get his oil to refineries and consumers without Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt persisted, however, and later that afternoon sent Amasa Stone to visit Rockefeller at Rockefeller's hotel. The two Clevelanders spoke for several hours, and Stone convinced Rockefeller to see Vanderbilt. The two men met that evening, and began a long and fruitful business relationship.
Vanderbilt subsequently played another critical role on Amasa Stone's railroad career. Vanderbilt wanted control of the Lake Shore Railway, which had formed out of a combination of smaller Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois railroads on March 31, 1868. In May 1868, Vanderbilt's proxies attended the first Lake Shore stockholders' meeting, and discovered that LeGrand Lockwood had a sizeable financial interest in the company. Vanderbilt was defeated in his attempt to install his own man as the Lake Shore's president. During the next several months, Lockwood worked with investor and robber baron Jay Gould, who was engaged in the Erie War for control of the Erie Railroad and wanted to divert all Lake Shore traffic to the Erie. On August 19, 1869, Lockwood and Gould rammed their plan through the Lake Shore's board of directors. Vanderbilt fought them, but his only victory was in securing the election of Amasa Stone to the Lake Shore's board. Stone served until his health failed again in 1875, when he resigned.
Stone's usefulness to Vanderbilt was soon interrupted, however. On October 18, 1867, Stone and J.C. Buell, the cashier of Cleveland's Second National Bank, were hurled from their carriage after it came apart after hitting an open gutter in Cleveland's Public Square. Stone was severely injured, and walked with a strong limp for the rest of his life. Stone went with his family to Europe to recuperate in 1868, and spent 13 months abroad. It was the first of two lengthy trips abroad for him.