William Cornelius Van Horne, (February 3, 1843 - September 11, 1915) succeeded Lord Mount Stephen as President of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1888. He was a prominent member of the Whitney syndicate who created the Cuban Railroad Company, founded in Trenton , New Jersey, in 1900 with a capitalization of $ 8,000,000. She lives in the Van Horne Mansion at Golden Square Mile Montreal.
Video William Cornelius Van Horne
Ancestral and early life
Born in 1843 in rural Illinois, Van Horne moved with his family to Joliet, Illinois, when he was eight years old.
He is the eldest son of Cornelius Covenhoven Van Horne (1794-1854) by his second wife Mary Minier Richards of Sandusky, Ohio. Cornelius studied law at Union College, but took his family to the west to look for his ranch. Misfortune occurred when his house, warehouse, and law book were destroyed by fire, and his first wife died shortly after. After leaving the farm, he returned to law and became the Will County, Illinois, Reconnaissance, moving his family to Joliet, Illinois. Cornelius was active in acquiring the first charter city, and because of this he was elected the first Mayor of Joliet. When the city then build a new bridge called
Van Horne Bridge.
Van Horne's grandfather Abraham Van Horne graduated from Queens College (now Rutgers) with a passion for ministry, and received his license to preach in 1792 from the Reformed Church of America. He held three pastors, one in Wawarsing, one near Kingston, New York and his last at Caughnawaga (now Fonda, New York), from 1796 to 1833.
Maps William Cornelius Van Horne
Careers
At the age of fourteen, Van Horne began working on the railroad, serving in various capacities at Illinois Central Railroad until 1864. He continued to work for Chicago and Alton Railway, serving as general superintendent from 1878-1879. In 1882, he was appointed general manager of the Canadian Pacific Railway, became vice president in 1884 and president in 1888. He is best known for overseeing the main construction of the first Canadian Train Continent, a project which, under his leadership, was completed in less than half the projected time.
Van Horne regards the railway as an integrated communications and transportation system and convinces directors and shareholders to create telegraph services and express delivery services as a railway complement. Van Horne is knowledgeable in almost every element of the railroad industry, including operating a locomotive. As a rich man, he later became an investor of the Cuban Railway Company, who built the first trans-state railway connecting Havana with the two eastern provinces (Camaguey and Oriente) and the city of Santiago de Cuba in 1901.
He was responsible for launching the marine transportation division of the Canadian Pacific Railway, inaugurating a regular service between Vancouver and Hong Kong in 1891 on the luxurious Empress ship. He also led the expansion of CPR into a luxury hotel business and participated in the design of two of the most famous buildings in the chain, Frontenac ChÃÆ'Â ¢ teau in Quebec City and Chateau Lake Louise in Alberta.
Personal life
Van Horne married Lucy Hurd in 1867, and the couple had three children. His eldest son, William Cornelius Van Horne Jr., died at the age of five, while their daughter, Lucy Adeline "Addie" Van Horne, and younger son, Richard Benedict "Benny" Van Horne, survived into adulthood. Benny married Edith Molson of Montreal Molsons and the couple had a son, named William for his grandfather.
Sir William bought and enlarged the house in 1889 which became known as Van Horne Mansion in Montreal, Quebec. In 1891, he began to build his summer plantation, which he named "Covenhoven" on the island of Ministers, adjacent to the resort town of St. Andrews, New Brunswick. The island estate is accessible by a natural sand-bar road during the low waves of the Bay of Fundy.
Van Horne served as governor of McGill University from 1895-1915 and was one of the first in Canada to obtain works of art by members of the French impressionist movement. He himself is a painter, with his living works now in museums such as the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and Covenhoven itself. Other talents include statues, architecture, violin play, fossil collections, agriculture, botany and gardening.
After the death of Van Horne at the Royal Victoria Hospital, in Montreal, Quebec in 1915 at the age of 72, his body was buried at Oakwood Cemetery in Joliet, Illinois. His home in Montreal on the Golden Square Mile was destroyed controversially in 1973.
Awards
Van Horne was appointed Commander of the Knight of Honor from the Order of St. Michael and St. George at Queen Victoria's 1894 Birthday Honors though, as an American citizen, technically not entitled to the prefix "Sir." Nonetheless, he was later called "Sir William."
The Van Horne Institute, based in Calgary, Alberta, is affiliated with the University of Calgary, Athabasca University and the University of Alberta and conducts research and policy studies related to all rail-related issues including rail, air, shipping and road transport, electricity and information networks.
Sir William Van Horne Elementary School in Vancouver, B.C., named after Van Horne, in honor of his contribution to British Columbia. There are roads named for Van Horne in several Canadian cities including Montreal, Toronto, Sudbury, Winnipeg, Brandon, and Regina. In Cuba, a small town in Camaguey (close to the train) is named after Van Horne, also, a street in front of the Camaguey railway station, as a week as a small station on the Central Railroad in the Province of HolguÃÆ'n.
Van Horne summer area on the Isle of Wight was designated as the Canadian National Historic Site in 1996.
In 1999, William Van Horne was appointed Hall of Fame in North America in the category "National: Railroad & Building Worker".
In 2011, Van Horne featured in Rocky Mountain Express, a 45 minute IMAX movie about CPR construction.
References
External links
- Biography at Canadian Online Biography Dictionary
- Walter Vaughan, Sir William Van Horne's Life and Works (New York: Century Co., 1920)
- Photo: Sir William Van Horne in 1902. McCord Museum
- Photo: Sir William Van Horne circa 1905. McCord Museum
- Minister Island
- Van Horne Institute
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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