Virtual Museum of Art | Virtual Museum of History | Virtual Public Library | Virtual Science Center | Virtual Museum of Natural History | Virtual War Museum
   You are in: Museum of History >> Hall of North and South Americans >> Henry Meiggs





The Seven Flags of the New Orleans Tri-Centennial 1718-2018

For more information go to New Orleans 300th Birthday

 

Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography, edited by James Grant Wilson, John Fiske and Stanley L. Klos. Six volumes, New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1887-1889 and 1999. Virtualology.com warns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors and bias. We rely on volunteers to edit the historic biographies on a continual basis. If you would like to edit this biography please submit a rewritten biography in text form . If acceptable, the new biography will be published above the 19th Century Appleton's Cyclopedia Biography citing the volunteer editor




Virtual American Biographies

Over 30,000 personalities with thousands of 19th Century illustrations, signatures, and exceptional life stories. Virtualology.com welcomes editing and additions to the biographies. To become this site's editor or a contributor Click Here or e-mail Virtualology here.



A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

 



Henry Meiggs

MEIGGS, Henry, contractor, born in Catskill, New York, 7 July, 1811: died in Lima, Peru, 30 September, 1877. He came to New York city about 1835 and engaged in the lumber business. The financial crisis of 1837 caused his failure, but he at once established a new lumber-yard in Williamsburgh, and among' his contracts at that time was the building of St. Mark's church, which he completed. In 1842 he again met with reverses and returned to New York, whence he shipped lumber to the Pacific coast. Subsequently he went to San Francisco with a cargo of lumber, which he sold for twenty times its cost. He soon built a fleet of sloops and schooners, with which he brought lumber from different points on the coast, and employed 500 men in felling trees for a single sawmill on the Bay of San Francisco. In this manner he attained a large fortune. In the financial depression of 1854 he was unable to meet his obligations, and, leaving debts to the amount of $1,000, -000, he fled with his family on one of his schooners, which he had loaded with everything that his residence contained. He then engaged in the building of bridges on the Valparaiso and Santiago road in Chili, and in 1858 contracted with the government of that country for the construction of railroads, from which he realized a profit of $1,500< 000. This gained for him the reputation of being the greatest railway-contractor in South America, and he next undertook the building of six railroads in Peru, of which three were completed and the remainder were in course of construction at the time of his death. Of these the Callao, Lima, and Orova road ranks among the most daring achievements of modern engineering. It is a successful attempt to connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, by a railway across the Andes, from Callao to the head of navigation on the Amazon. The height ascended by this road is within 136 feet of that of the summit of Mont Blanc. The road bends upon itself with sharp angles as it ascends the mountains, and pierces the obstructing peaks with thirty-two tunnels, which often come together so closely that they seem continuous to the traveller. Great gorges had to be traversed and torrent streams spanned by bridges that seemed to hang in midair. In several places the mountain-sides were so precipitous that the workmen could only reach the point at which a tunnel started by being let down with ropes from the edge of the cliff and held there until they had cut for themselves a foot-hold in the rock. [['he diamond-drill was used in many of the borings where the rocks were hard enough to scratch glass. One of the bridges, over a chasm 2,000 feet deep, leads to a tunnel at either end. The difficulties of the work were increased by the necessity of transporting all the implements, materials, and workmen up to these almost inaccessible heights. Before Mr. Meiggs's death the greater part of the work was completed and in running or-def. When the Peruvian government was unable to assist him, Mr. Meiggs sacrificed his own private means rather than allow the enterprise to fail. One of the public works that he undertook in Peru was the improvement of, the environs of Lima. The city was surrounded by a rampart of filth and rubbish, the accumulated refuse of many generations. Mr. Meiggs replaced this by a park more than seven miles in length, and he provided for his own fortune by securing and afterward selling the adjoining property for building purposes. His success in South America made it possible for him to meet all of his former obligations, and those in California he paid in full with interest. The legislature of that state ultimately passed an act relieving him of all penalties on account of his connection with the over-issued bonds of San Francisco. He was a frequent contributor of funds to charities in the United States.

Edited Appletons Encyclopedia, Copyright © 2001 VirtualologyTM

Start your search on Henry Meiggs.


 

 


 


Unauthorized Site: This site and its contents are not affiliated, connected, associated with or authorized by the individual, family, friends, or trademarked entities utilizing any part or the subject's entire name. Any official or affiliated sites that are related to this subject will be hyper linked below upon submission and Evisum, Inc. review.

Copyright© 2000 by Evisum Inc.TM. All rights reserved.
Evisum Inc.TM Privacy Policy

Search:

About Us

 

 

Image Use

Please join us in our mission to incorporate The Congressional Evolution of the United States of America discovery-based curriculum into the classroom of every primary and secondary school in the United States of America by July 2, 2026, the nation’s 250th birthday. , the United States of America: We The People Click Here

 

Historic Documents

Articles of Association

Articles of Confederation 1775

Articles of Confederation

Article the First

Coin Act

Declaration of Independence

Declaration of Independence

Emancipation Proclamation

Gettysburg Address

Monroe Doctrine

Northwest Ordinance

No Taxation Without Representation

Thanksgiving Proclamations

Mayflower Compact

Treaty of Paris 1763

Treaty of Paris 1783

Treaty of Versailles

United Nations Charter

United States In Congress Assembled

US Bill of Rights

United States Constitution

US Continental Congress

US Constitution of 1777

US Constitution of 1787

Virginia Declaration of Rights

 

Historic Events

Battle of New Orleans

Battle of Yorktown

Cabinet Room

Civil Rights Movement

Federalist Papers

Fort Duquesne

Fort Necessity

Fort Pitt

French and Indian War

Jumonville Glen

Manhattan Project

Stamp Act Congress

Underground Railroad

US Hospitality

US Presidency

Vietnam War

War of 1812

West Virginia Statehood

Woman Suffrage

World War I

World War II

 

Is it Real?



Declaration of
Independence

Digital Authentication
Click Here

 

America’s Four Republics
The More or Less United States

 
Continental Congress
U.C. Presidents

Peyton Randolph

Henry Middleton

Peyton Randolph

John Hancock

  

Continental Congress
U.S. Presidents

John Hancock

Henry Laurens

John Jay

Samuel Huntington

  

Constitution of 1777
U.S. Presidents

Samuel Huntington

Samuel Johnston
Elected but declined the office

Thomas McKean

John Hanson

Elias Boudinot

Thomas Mifflin

Richard Henry Lee

John Hancock
[
Chairman David Ramsay]

Nathaniel Gorham

Arthur St. Clair

Cyrus Griffin

  

Constitution of 1787
U.S. Presidents

George Washington 

John Adams
Federalist Party


Thomas Jefferson
Republican* Party

James Madison 
Republican* Party

James Monroe
Republican* Party

John Quincy Adams
Republican* Party
Whig Party

Andrew Jackson
Republican* Party
Democratic Party


Martin Van Buren
Democratic Party

William H. Harrison
Whig Party

John Tyler
Whig Party

James K. Polk
Democratic Party

David Atchison**
Democratic Party

Zachary Taylor
Whig Party

Millard Fillmore
Whig Party

Franklin Pierce
Democratic Party

James Buchanan
Democratic Party


Abraham Lincoln 
Republican Party

Jefferson Davis***
Democratic Party

Andrew Johnson
Republican Party

Ulysses S. Grant 
Republican Party

Rutherford B. Hayes
Republican Party

James A. Garfield
Republican Party

Chester Arthur 
Republican Party

Grover Cleveland
Democratic Party

Benjamin Harrison
Republican Party

Grover Cleveland 
Democratic Party

William McKinley
Republican Party

Theodore Roosevelt
Republican Party

William H. Taft 
Republican Party

Woodrow Wilson
Democratic Party

Warren G. Harding 
Republican Party

Calvin Coolidge
Republican Party

Herbert C. Hoover
Republican Party

Franklin D. Roosevelt
Democratic Party

Harry S. Truman
Democratic Party

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Republican Party

John F. Kennedy
Democratic Party

Lyndon B. Johnson 
Democratic Party 

Richard M. Nixon 
Republican Party

Gerald R. Ford 
Republican Party

James Earl Carter, Jr. 
Democratic Party

Ronald Wilson Reagan 
Republican Party

George H. W. Bush
Republican Party 

William Jefferson Clinton
Democratic Party

George W. Bush 
Republican Party

Barack H. Obama
Democratic Party

Please Visit

Forgotten Founders
Norwich, CT

Annapolis Continental
Congress Society


U.S. Presidency
& Hospitality

© Stan Klos

 

 

 

 


Virtual Museum of Art | Virtual Museum of History | Virtual Public Library | Virtual Science Center | Virtual Museum of Natural History | Virtual War Museum