and undertook to look after business connected with the road in the eastern states; Stanford undertook much the same kind of work in California; while Crocker devoted himself to the superintendence of the construction, and Hopkins to the economy and superintendence of supplies. Quite as important as any, though his work was nearly ended, was Judah, who continued at the head of the engineer department and saw to the proper launching and starting of the gigantic undertaking. In July, 1863, six months after the breaking of ground at Sacramento, he made a report upon the progress of construction and approximate estimate of cost of the first fifty miles of the road. He gave reasons why the new undertaking could not adopt the line of the Sacramento valley railroad to Folsom, and then described with great particularity the line adopted across the American river and by way of Griders to and up the divide between Antelope and Secret Ravines to Newcastle and thence by way of Auburn and Clipper Gap to New England Gap, fifty miles from Sacramento. The cost of this part of the road he estimated at nearly three and a quarter million dollars, or an average of nearly sixtyfive thousand dollars per mile. Such at least were the figures, based mainly upon the contracts for grading, masonry, bridging, ties and track-laying which had been given out on December 27, 1862, to the firm of C. Crocker & Co. The distance to Griders was about eighteen miles, divided into eighteen sections, all or nearly all of which were subcontracted by C. Crocker & Co. to other parties. And in July, 1863, when the report was made, the bridge over the American river was nearly completed and most of the line graded and ready for the rails. He also mentioned the fact that six thousand tons or over sixty miles of iron rails had been purchased and contracted to be delivered at the rate of five hundred tons per month, together with spikes and chairs for sixty miles of road, six locomotives, six first-class passenger cars, two baggage cars, twenty-five platform freight cars, fifteen box freight cars, and frogs, switches, turn-tables and other necessaries for fifty miles of road. He called especial attention to what was necessary to be done in order to comply fully with the act of congress, being apparently conscientiously anxious on the subject and particularly in securing the line through Nevada;

30 VOL. IV.

and, in conclusion, he invited notice to forty-eight specimens of rock from different localities on the line of the road, seven specimens of gold, silver and copper ore, two of iron, one of asbestos and one of soap-stone from the vicinity of the line.'

In October, 1863, for the purpose of being present at the next session of congress and looking after further proposed legislation in reference to the Pacific railroads, Judah again took passage for Washington. But on his way he was stricken with fever and died in New York on November 2, 1863, at the early age of thirtyseven years. In him perished a genius-one of the greatest in his important line-without whom the way over the Sierra would not have been found perhaps for many years. Like many other men of genius his reward consisted chiefly in his own activity and the consciousness and satisfaction of doing noble work thoroughly and well. He made for others, or enabled others to make, uncounted wealth and to occupy places of first-class prominence in the world; but, for himself, he made in the way of money comparatively nothing; and in name and recollection, as new and inferior men took his place and easily continued in the path he had found and so clearly pointed out, he was in a short time substantially forgotten. While the railroad in its completed state and its offspring and imitations, which now span the continent, have changed the face of the globe and engrossed to a greater or less extent the attention of courts and cabinets in almost every quarter of the earth, it is only in old records and reports that the name of Judah, the bright spirit that called them into being, is to be found. But whether remembered and recognized or not—and it is only to posterity and not to him that it can make any difference-his admirable work is his monument, and it must and will forever remain so.

1 Judah's Report of July, 1863.

THE

CHAPTER VI.

PACIFIC RAILROADS (CONTINUED).

HE magnitude of the enterprise across the Sierra Nevada mountains and the need of current money to carry on the work of construction-which the railroad company did not possess and could not rely upon raising merely on its prospects, and particularly while those prospects, as was the case, were continually and by every possible means misrepresented and belittled by its enemies-rendered it necessary to apply for further aid in the way of subsidies. But the recognized great advantage of the road and the general desire that it should be built at any cost predisposed almost everybody in its favor; and accordingly, when the representatives of the company, and chiefly Stanford in California and Huntington in Washington, commenced the work of soliciting on a grand scale, they met with extraordinary success. This part of the business was started in California under the management of Stanford at the legislature of 1863; and the result was an act, approved April 2, 1863, authorizing the county of Placer if the electors so voted to subscribe, for stock in the railroad, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in county bonds, which were to run for twenty years and be payable in gold coin with interest at eight per cent per annum;' an act, approved April 14, 1863, granting to the railroad the right of way and right to construct and operate its road upon certain specified streets in the city of Sacramento and certain levee and other public lands. outside of said city, and also granting to it a portion of the water front of said city and the tract of land within its limits commonly known as "Sutter Lake" or "The Slough;" an act, approved April 17, 1863, authorizing a change and relocation of the line of the road between Sacramento and the state boundary and a reorStats. 1863, 145.

ganization of the company, if found advisable; an act, approved April 22, 1863, authorizing the city and county of San Francisco if the electors so voted to subscribe for stock to the amount of six hundred thousand dollars, in addition to four hundred thousand to the Western Pacific Railroad Company, in city and county bonds running thirty years and payable in gold with seven per cent annual interest; an act, approved April 25, 1863, authorizing the city and county of Sacramento in like manner to subscribe for three thousand shares of the capital stock, paying therefor three hundred thousand dollars in city and county bonds; an act, approved April 25, 1863, requiring the state to pay five hundred thousand dollars at the rate of two hundred thousand dollars. when the first twenty miles were completed, a like sum for the second twenty miles, and a hundred thousand when fifty miles were finished, in consideration of which the company was to transport free of charge public messengers, convicts going to the state prison, materials for the construction of the state capitol, articles for exhibition at the state agricultural fairs and, in case of war, invasion or insurrection, troops and munitions of war belonging to the state,' and an act, approved April 27, 1863, authorizing and empowering the Sacramento, Placer and Nevada Railroad Company to sell and convey to the Central Pacific Railroad Company all or any part of any railroad built by it, together with its franchise and all its rights, privileges and property."

In December, 1863, when the legislature of 1863-4 convened in accordance with the new amendments to the constitution and Low became governor instead of Stanford, the railroad still continued popular. Though there began in some quarters to be a feeling that it had obtained too much, this feeling was not general. On January 9, 1864, in the senate, A. M. Crane of Alameda county introduced a bill to repeal the above mentioned act of April 25, 1863, requiring the state to contribute five hundred thousand dollars; but his bill, as well as another by him for a rival road over the Sierra Nevada, was throttled by a committee favorable to the Central Pacific Railroad to which it was referred. On the contrary, a new bill, revamping and enlarging 1 Stats. 1863, 288, 320, 380, 447, 465.

2 Stats. 1863, 749; see Hittell's Gen. Laws, 4790.

3 Senate Journal, 1863-4, 149, 389.

the act of April 25, 1863, and as such superseding it, was passed and approved on April 4, 1864. This new act contained a preamble reciting the active existence of the war of rebellion; the aid granted by the United States for the construction of the road for military and other purposes; the insufficiency of such aid to complete the work as speedily as necessary, and the importance of its early construction to repel invasion, suppress insurrection and defend the state against its enemies. It therefore authorized and empowered the company to issue its bonds of one thousand dollars each to an amount not exceeding twelve millions of dollars, payable in gold coin in not exceeding twenty years from January 1, 1865, with semi-annual interest at the rate of seven per cent per annum. These bonds were to be secured by mortgages on the railroad, rolling stock, buildings, machinery, fixtures and franchises of the company; but, so far as the first fifteen hundred of the bonds, representing a million and a half of dollars, were concerned, it was enacted that the interest thereon should be payable by the state at its treasury, provided however that the counties of Placer and Sacramento and the city and county of San Francisco should be exempt from all liabilities as stockholders of the company on such bonds over and above the stock theretofore subscribed by them respectively. Provision was then made for the levy of a state tax at the rate of eight cents on each one hundred dollars of taxable property in the state for the ensuing twenty years and for the creation of a state "Pacific railroad. fund" for the payment of the interest on such first fifteen hundred bonds. The act also contained the same conditions as the previous one in reference to free transportation and an additional provision, requiring the company to convey to the state a granite quarry of three hundred and twenty acres on the line of the railroad in Placer county, twenty-two miles from Sacramento. Another act was approved on the same day, authorizing and empowering the board of supervisors of the city and county of San Francisco to compromise and settle for cash all claims of the Central Pacific and Western Pacific railroad companies for city and county bonds under the above mentioned acts for their issue, in case said acts should be decided to be valid. Still another act was approved the same day, purporting to aid in carrying out the