Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-02-13
A USEFUL LIFE.
DEATH OF ANDREW J. STEVENS
HIS LIFE AND INVENTIONS.


A Prince Among Mechanics-Re-
spected and Honored of Men
Grief of the People.
This community has not in several years,
by reason of the death of one of its citi-
zens, SO deeply felt the heavy hand of woe
as now. In every home in Sacramento
there are sympathetic hearts laden with
sorrow for the cessation of one of the most
useful lives of the social organization. An
drew Jack son Stevens is dead, and the city
of his home mourns for him with the sim
cerity that only genuine sorrow knows
To tell the story of his life is exceeding
difficult, for his activity was like that OF
the deep, resistless nder-current-noise-
less. undemonstrative, almost unseen OF
men, but felt throughout the walks of labor
and recognized in mechanic arts as have
been few others. Not all great names are
paraded before the world. There are giants
and heroes in walks of life of whom men
hear little, but whose achievements OPP
crate upon the most vital affairs of life, and
affect every tide of trade and commerce.
A. J. Stevens was one of these silent giant
, workers in the bou1dless field of mechan-
ical achievement, of whom the world
learned but little from HIM, but whose tri-
umphs are imperishable monuments to his
indomitable will, his marvellous energy,
and his contribution to inventive progress.
To the inventors and organizers of labor
forces the world owes as much, if not
more, than to its battle-scarred heroes, or
the statesmen who have nodded its policies.
| While contention goes with the latter,
and blood is shed upon the field, these
silent workers give to us the means for
lessening human toll and achieving
victories, and the agencies by which we re-
duce native forces to obedience and make
the elements servants to do our slightest
bidding. While the thought of men
wrestles with ideas for betterment of social
conditions, the
| MASTER MECHANIC MINDS
Evolve the instrumentalties by which we
overcome the obstacles nature interposes to
mans conquest of the world, and gives US
The enginery with which we span land and
sea- conquer to our uses the most stubborn
natural forces, turn up to the light of the
sun and to human uses the hidden wealth
of the bowels of the earth, and through
which agencies we eliminate time as an
element of communication, bring the most
distant marts each to the threshold of the
other, disclose the depths of the wilderness
and reclaim it 70 civilization, chain time
itself TO the wheels of commerce, and, pene-
trating the armament, search out its mys-
teries.
In the fullest and broadest sense of the
| word I yuaS inv
a master mechanic and master organizer
of labor and mechanical forces. Rising
from the apprentice rank to the direction of
one of the most complete and successfully
productive mechanical agencies in the
| Union, he knew the capacity of mechanics,
their duty and their due, their obligations
and their rights; and while exacting from
them the one, all his life he fearlessiy stood
the champion of the other. He mar
shalled and used great bodies of
skilled workers as a mastery general
controls armies, outstanding their strength,
studying their field of action, and achiev-
ing victories by irresistible force and tact
ical skill If A. J. Stevens fought no bat
ties and held no office in State, he never
theless rendered such service to mechanical
science that his fellow-citizens would be
ungrateful or blind if they failed to ac-
knowledge them. The department of
service in which this silent, tireless worker
and brainy man labored entities him to a
foremost place in the annals of mechanics
and of good citizenship, and this a grateful
constituency and sorrowing community
give him unheSitatingly. In an age re-
markable for its great deeds and heroes Mr.
Stevens labored and conquered in field
that gives TO progressive America almost as
much importance as its constitutions and
tolerance, and in which area great body
of
MASTER MINDS
Has developed agencies and forces that are
contributing almost as much to our pros
perlty and progress as our political consti-
tutions and not less than our social institu-
lions. A. }. Stevens, in whose honor to-
day the municipal government withhclds
itself from business while his remains pass
by, to do them honor; out of respect to
| whose memory the business of the city of
his home uncovers as his body is borne to
its last resting place; for whom two thou
sand comrades in the battle of mechanic
skill with natural obstacles take positions
as mourners, and whose death has brought
sorrow to an entire community, was born
in Barnard, Windsor county. Vermont.
September IA, 1888, and was therefore a
little over tifty-four years of age at the
time of his death. 1t is q singular
coincidence that the locomotive, called in
regular order to duty, that bore him to his
home Just before he died should have borne
the same number as the years of his life.
Conscious that he was nearing his last mo-
ments, he reused up and asked Ben"
Smith, Superintendent of Locomotives,
what locomotive was drawing the ear, and.
when the number was given, it awakened
in him surprise; he followed the inquiry
by one for the name of the engineer, and
was told it was Jim" Saulpaugh lone OF
| the Oldest engineers upon the road)
What! old Jim ?" he asked. with a
pleased expression. Then it's all right. all
right" and he sank back contented and re-
lapsed into silence.
When he was not yet II years of
age he entered railway service. He
was apprenticed at the Northern Road
shops, Concord, n. H., and served late in
1852 as a machinist in the Vermont Central
road shops, at Northtield VT. From 1854
to 1855 he was foreman of the repair shop
of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy
Road at Aurora, Ill. He ran as a locomo-
tive engineer on that road from 1855 to
1857, and hereafter in like capacity on the
Peoria and Oquawka Railroad eastern ex-
tension), and again on the Chicago, Bur-
lington and Quincy. While on the Chi
cago, Burlington and Quincy road, A. N
IoWne, now General Manager of the South
ern Pacific Company. was a conductor on
the same line. In 1861 Mr.. Stevens
CAME TO CALIFORNIA
And entered the service of the Market-street
road, San Francisco, in 1862 as a machin-
ist In the same year he superintendent the
construction of locomotives at the Vulcan
Iron Works, for use in Washington Terri
tory. He re-entered the service of the
Market-street road in the same year as
Super ntendent of Machinery and in 1864
took position on the San Francisco and
Alameda Railroad, and filled, in about five
years the offices of Superintendent of Con-
struction of Engines and Cars. Superin-
tendent of Locomotive and Car Depart
ment and finally as Superintendent and
Master Mechanic He then served the
Oakland and San Francisco Railroad for a
time as Superintendent and Master
Mechanic, and in 1869 was made Division
Master Mechanic of the Central Pacific
Railroad, with headquarters at Oakland
In 1870 he was promoted to the high trust
of General Master Mechanic of the Central
Pacific Railroad and later of the Southern
Pacific Company, filling the place from
that time to the hour OF his death. He
| Of he h,,c A.