My Genealogy Hound

GEN. GEORGE W. CASS, the third in the line of presidents of the Northern Pacific Railroad company, was born in Muskingum county, Ohio, March 12, 1810, of New England parents. Owing to the schools in that then new region being of the most elementary character, he was sent to Detroit, in 1824, for the purpose of being educated at the Detroit Academy, a most excellent school, then under the charge of Rev. Ashbel Wells. During his residence in Detroit (1824-27), he was a member of the family of his uncle, Gen. Lewis Cass, at that time governor of the territory of Michigan. Having obtained an appointment from his native state, he entered as a cadet the United States Military Academy, at West Point, N. Y., where he graduated in 1832 with such honor that he was appointed to the department of topographical engineers. After serving in this department six months he was transferred to the department of military engineers He resigned from the army in 1836, and was then appointed by President Jackson civil engineer on the National road, in which capacity he continued until the completion of the road in the states of Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia, and its reception by the governors of those states, respectively. During this service he erected the first cast-iron bridge ever built in the United States, over Dunlap’s creek, a tributary of the Monongahela river. As engineer for the improvement of this river he made the survey and located and superintended the construction of Locks Nos 3 and 4.

On the completion of the Monongahela improvement to Brownsville, Pa., he organized the first steamboat line, and also the first fast transportation line across the mountains by relays of teams similar to stage lines thus building up a great carrying-trade between the east and west via the Monongahela river and Pittsburgh. In 1849 he established the Adams Express across the mountains from Baltimore; effected the consolidation of all the Adams Express lines between Boston and St. Louis, and south to Richmond, in 1854, and the year following: was elected president of the consolidated company. Having moved his home from Brownsville to Pittsburgh, Mr. Cass was elected in January, 1856, president of the Ohio & Pennsylvania Railroad company which was afterward consolidated with the Ohio & Indiana and Ft. Wayne & Chicago Railroad companies, which is now known as the Pittsburgh, Ft. Wayne & Chicago Railway company. Mr. Cass became the first president of the consolidated company and held the position until 1881, when he resigned the office of president, though he continued to be a director and trustee of the company until the time of his death. He also became in 1867, largely interested in the Northern Pacific enterprise, and in 1872 succeeded to the Presidency of that company, resigning in 1875 to accept the office of receiver of the same to which he was appointed by the United States circuit court. In connection with Benjamin P. Cheney, of Boston, Mr. Cass opened the large pioneer wheat-farm near Casselton, in the Red River valley Dakota, known from the name of its manager as the Dalrymple farm. Mr. Cass, after resigning the presidency of the Ft. Wayne company, retired from active pursuits. From 1852 to 1863, he lived in Allegheny, Pa., and from 1863 to 1873, in the borough of Osborn where he built a fine residence. He lived the latter years of his life in New York city where he died, March 21, 1888. He was always a stanch democrat. At the time of his death, and for some years prior, he was senior warden of Christ Church, New York city. Mr. Cass leaves a wife, one son, and six daughters, one of them, Sophia, being the widow of the late F. M. Hutchinson of Sewickley, a sketch of whom appears below.