Oliver Ames Jr. (November 5, 1807 – March 9, 1877) was president of

Union Pacific Railroad The Union Pacific Railroad is a Railroad classes, Class I freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Pacific is the second largest railroad in the United Stat ...

when the railroad met the Central Pacific Railroad in

Utah Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northea ...

for the completion of the

First transcontinental railroad America's first transcontinental railroad (known originally as the "Pacific Railroad" and later as the "Overland Route (Union Pacific Railroad), Overland Route") was a continuous railroad line built between 1863 and 1869 that connected the exis ...

in North America.

Biography

Born in

Plymouth, Massachusetts Plymouth ( ; historically also spelled as Plimouth and Plimoth) is a town in and the county seat of Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States. Located in Greater Boston, the town holds a place of great prominence in American history, folklor ...

, he was a son of Oliver Ames Sr. and Susannah (Angier) Ames, and a brother of Oakes Ames.Spencer Marks (2005),
The Ames Family of North Easton, MA
''. Retrieved December 29, 2005.Union Pacific Railroad,
Union Pacific: Significant Individuals
''. Retrieved December 29, 2005. Young Oliver attended public schools for a few years, then Franklin Academy in North Andover. He briefly entered the law field, but left to help in the family shovel business. By 1844, Oliver and his brother Oakes Ames entered into partnership with their father, operating under the company name of Oliver Ames & Sons. It was a good time to be in the shovel business, as the nation was experiencing a dramatic expansion of canals, railroads, and other major infrastructure, all of which were built by men swinging shovels. Oliver Ames Jr. served as president of

(UP) while the railroad was busy building the

in North America. He was its president '' pro tem'' from 1866 until 1868, and was formally elected president of the company on March 12, 1868. He continued as president until March 8, 1871. His tenure was marked by controversy since his 1866 ascent to the presidency was over Thomas C. Durant who had tried to gain the position for himself. Durant filed lawsuits against Ames that stopped construction, and Ames retaliated by garnering support to remove Durant from the railroad's executive committee. A divided board of directors was beyond Ames' management capabilities, and he finally acquiesced to readmitting Durant in 1867, and Crédit Mobilier awarded Ames a new construction contract.PBS; The American Experience,
People & Events: Oakes Ames (1804-1873)
'. Retrieved December 29, 2005. In 1873, Ames succeeded his brother as the head of Crédit Mobilier. Oliver Ames Jr. served in the Massachusetts State Senate in 1852 and 1857. He was a Whig and later a Republican.

Personal life

Starting around 1826, Oliver became involved in the

temperance movement The temperance movement is a social movement promoting Temperance (virtue), temperance or total abstinence from consumption of alcoholic beverages. Participants in the movement typically criticize alcohol intoxication or promote teetotalism, and ...

; he was said to be the first man in Easton to sign a temperance pledge. Ames married Sarah Lothrop on June 11, 1833. Sarah was daughter of Howard Lothrop of Easton, Massachusetts. They had two children: Frederick Lothrop Ames and Helen Angier. Like the rest of his family, Oliver Jr. was a devoted Unitarian, and attended Unitarian churches in Easton and North Easton. In 1875, Ames hired his nephew, John Ames Mitchell, to design the Unity Church of North Easton, at a cost of $100,000, (~$ in ) and on his death he left a bequest to keep the church in repair.

Death and legacy

Ames died at North Easton on March 9, 1877. He left $50,000 in his will for the construction of a library. The will stipulated that it was to be a private institution, not owned by the town, but operated in trust for the public. The request was carried out by his children, Frederick Lothrop Ames and Helen Angier Ames. They hired Henry Hobson Richardson to design the Ames Free Library. The final cost of the building came to at least $80,000. Medallions in the library honor Ames with his likeness. The contributions of Ames and his brother Oakes in the building of the Union Pacific are commemorated in the Oliver and Oakes Ames Monument at Sherman Summit, near

Laramie, Wyoming Laramie () is a List of municipalities in Wyoming, city in and the county seat of Albany County, Wyoming, United States, known for its high elevation at , for its railroad history, and as the home of the University of Wyoming. The population wa ...

, along the railroad's original route. The

pyramid A pyramid () is a structure whose visible surfaces are triangular in broad outline and converge toward the top, making the appearance roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be of any polygon shape, such as trian ...

al monument was designed by famous architect Henry Hobson Richardson (who designed a number of projects for the Ames family) with sculpted plaques of the Ames brothers by

Augustus Saint-Gaudens Augustus Saint-Gaudens (; March 1, 1848 – August 3, 1907) was an American sculpture, sculptor of the Beaux-Arts architecture, Beaux-Arts generation who embodied the ideals of the American Renaissance. Saint-Gaudens was born in Dublin to an Iris ...

. At the time of its construction, the monument was located at the highest point attained by the Union Pacific's transcontinental route. With a change in the route of the railroad, the monument today is not on any major transportation route, though is easily accessible a short distance off an exit of Interstate 80.

Footnotes

References

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ames, Oliver Jr. 1807 births 1877 deaths Butler–Ames family Union Pacific Railroad people 19th-century American railroad executives Politicians from Plymouth, Massachusetts People from Easton, Massachusetts American Unitarians Massachusetts state senators Massachusetts Republicans Massachusetts Whigs 19th-century members of the Massachusetts General Court

Biography

Personal life

Death and legacy

See also

Footnotes

References