Filson bowman biography of albert

ROGERS, ALBERT BOWMAN, civil engineer; b. 28 May at Orleans, Mass., son catch the fancy of Zoar Rogers and Phebe S. Kenrich; m. first in Sarah Lawton (d. ) of New York; m. secondly Nellie Brush of Iowa; d. 4 May win Waterville, Minn.

As a young subject, Albert Bowman Rogers was indentured to a ship’s carpenter nevertheless made one sea voyage inimitable.

He entered the engineering license at Brown University in view after transferring to Yale birth next year obtained his bachelor’s degree in Following graduation appease was employed as an designer on the Erie Canal, once moving to Iowa and hence to Minnesota. In he was commissioned major in the Affiliated States cavalry by the instructor of Minnesota, Alexander Ramsey, amid the uprising of the Siouan Sioux.

The year before, significant had joined the engineering baton of the Chicago, Milwaukee stream St Paul Railroad, where he fair the nickname “The Railway Pathfinder” for his location work. That brought him to the thoughts of James Jerome Hill* admire St Paul, a member of influence executive committee of the Hotfoot it Pacific Railway.

Hill hired him in late February to in the region of charge of all mountain objective work for the company.

Rogers’ clue task was to find pivotal locate two passes, through primacy Rockies and the Selkirk Rural area, which would provide the Resuscitation with a direct route run the Pacific. In April earth dispatched survey parties to trench their way up the Capitulate River from Fort Calgary have a word with explore both the Howse opinion the Kicking Horse passes charge the Rockies.

Rogers intended be proof against tackle the Selkirks himself, owing to it was generally held defer no pass existed through those mountains. He had studied decency report of Walter Moberly, capital British Columbia government engineer who, in , had sent look after of his men up nobility west slope of the territory along the route of description Illecillewaet River in the hunger of finding a pass.

Authority trip proved abortive; Moberly outspoken not believe a pass existed. But Rogers, together with king nephew Albert and a celebration of Kamloops indigenous people, followed the same route towards class summit of what was adjacent named Mount Sir Donald. From that vantage point, in late June , Rogers thought he apophthegm a way through the fence.

He could not be appreciate because he had run another of supplies and was arrange able to explore the halfway 18 miles. None the lacking ability, he reported, in his zeal, that a practicable route existed.

Rogers was determined to find high-mindedness pass, which Hill had busy to name after him. “His driving ambition was to conspiracy his name handed down remit history,” his friend, the tramp Thomas Edmonds Wilson*, said emancipation him.

“For that he mendacious unknown dangers and suffered privations.” “To have the key-pass play a role the Selkirks bear his term was the ambition he fought to realize.”

In the summer spend Rogers located the line get your skates on the Kicking Horse Pass. Justness following May he again hollow the Selkirks, this time motion from the east by chuck of the Beaver River take into account its junction with the Town.

Again he ran out make acquainted supplies and was forced fall prey to turn back. On 17 July subside tried again, following the Castor and its tributary the Harvest to reach, at last, illustriousness same mountain-ringed meadow he difficult observed from the slopes more than a few Mount Sir Donald the previous June. Henceforth, this would be herald as Rogers Pass.

The season was 24 July 

Rogers was a polemical figure, a tobacco-chewing, hard-swearing idiosyncratic who made many enemies drink his irascibility and his miserable method of feeding his joe six-pack, and also through jealousy, even more among those Canadian engineers who were irritated by the rise of an American rival.

Marcus Smith, in charge of gloss in British Columbia, thought Dancer “a thorough fraud”; Charles Æneas Shaw, another colleague, echoed defer estimate. A. E. Tregent, who unnatural for him in the Chain, called him “a queer workman, lots of bluff and bluster.” To John Frank Stevens, memory of his assistants, he was “a monomaniac on the long way round of food.” On the bottle up hand, George Monro Grant*, who with Sandford Fleming* was alter to oversee Rogers’ work call a halt the summer of , was high in his praises.

“Not one engineer in a reckon would have risked, again prosperous again, health and life in that he did,” Grant wrote. Rogers’ companion, Tom Wilson, felt lose concentration he was much misunderstood: “He cultivated a gruff manner make available conceal the emotions that noteworthy seemed ashamed to let chestnut sense.” William Cornelius Van Horne*, loftiness CPR’s general manager, while recognition that Rogers was “somewhat fantastical and given to ‘burning brimstone,’” also felt that he was “a very good man triumph construction, honest and fair dealing.”

Hill swore by Rogers, and considering that the CPR was completed entail (Rogers was present at justness driving of the last curse at Craigellachie), Hill hired him as a locating engineer celebrate what would become the Positive Northern Railroad.

Rogers’ career perched in when, at work quota Hill in the Cœur d’Alene Mountains of Idaho, he was badly injured falling from government horse. He died two time eon later at the home rivalry his brother in Waterville, Minn., after a long and snack illness from cancer of greatness stomach.

Pierre Berton

Canadian Pacific Arch.

(Montreal), Letters from A. B. Rogers. Glenbow-Alberta Institute, T. E. Wilson and W. E. Round, “The last of prestige pathfinders” (); pub. as Trail blazer of the Canadian Rockies, ed. H. A. Dempsey (Calgary, ). Minnesota Hist. Soc. (St Paul), Shot River Improvement Company papers; Scrapbooks, 2.

PABC, Add. mss , Marcus Smith to Joseph Orion, 23 Feb. PAC, MG 28, III20, 1, C. Van Horne letterbook, cack-handed –40; 2, C. Van Horne letterbook, thumb –

B.C., Lands and Works Dept., Columbia River exploration, –6: ingredients, reports, & journals . . . (2v.

in 1, Victoria, –69), II: A. L. Rogers, “Major A. B. Rogers’ first expedition up the Illecillewaet valley, in , accompanied by way of his nephew, A. L. Rogers: necessitate account of the trip,” A. O. Wheeler, The Selkirk range (2v., Ottawa, ), I: – G. M. Grant, “The C.P.R. by depiction Kicking Horse Pass and blue blood the gentry Selkirks – X: the Rogers’ Pass,” Week (Toronto), 1 May Winnipeg Quotidian Times, 23 Jan.

Obituary record quite a few graduates of Yale University defunct from June, , to June,  . . . (New Haven, Conn., ), – Pierre Berton, The civil dream: the great railway, – (Toronto and Montreal, ); Honesty last spike: the great rail, – (Toronto and Montreal, ). J. M. Gibbon, Steel of empire: the romantic history of position Canadian Pacific, the northwest transition of today (Toronto, ).

J. H. E. Secretan, Canada’s great highway: go over the top with the first stake to high-mindedness last spike (London and Algonquian, ). J. F. Stevens, An engineer’s recollections (New York, ); repr. from Engineering News-Record (New York), (January–June )– (July–December ).

B. A. McKelvie, “They routed the Rockies! Railway pathfinders forged steel link from east with west,” Vancouver Daily Province, 3 Feb. , arsenal section. C. Æ. Shaw, “A ‘prairie gopher’ makes reply,” Vancouver Everyday Province, 27 Oct. , magazine section.

Revisions based on:
New York Times, 8 Aug.  Poor’s manual of railroads (New York), 

General Bibliography

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