page_title: Samuel Marsh (railroad executive)
section_title: Biography
hierarchical_section_title: Samuel Marsh (railroad executive) / Biography
caption_attribution_description: English: Astor House, New York City 1862
context_page_description: Samuel Marsh was an American business man and president of the Erie Railroad from 1859 to 1861.
context_section_description: Samuel Marsh was born in 1786, at Haverhill, Massachusetts, and died in 1872, at the Astor House, New York, at which place he had resided a greater portion of his long and useful life. His New England ancestry, a long-lived and estimable family, traced back through the landing of the Pilgrims in 1638, becomes in the twelfth century, not Marsh, but de Marisco, with Marsh quaintly written as a parenthetical alternative in the manuscripts.
  Samuel Marsh came to New York during the War of 1812, and from that time made the metropolis his home. After the cessation of hostilities with Great Britain, he travelled long in Europe for the purpose of completing his business education and familiarizing himself with the usages of European trade. In 1819 he established the New York Dyeing and Printing Company, with factories on Staten Island, and was its president until his death.
  The development of the canals of the United States greatly interested him, and in the early part of the century, in connection with Erastus Corning, Horatio Seymour, and others, he projected a canal system by which the waters of the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River were to be connected. The name of the enterprise was the Fox River Improvement Company. Many millions of dollars have been expended on it. The project greatly aided the material growth of the State of Wisconsin, although as yet the canal is not available for vessels of deep-water draught.
  Mr. Marsh was among the pioneers of railways in America. He was one of the twenty gentlemen who met in 1845, at the New York Hotel, on the invitation of Benjamin Loder, and united in a subscription amounting to three millions of dollars, which was intended to complete the construction of the Erie. From 1846 until 1865, Mr. Marsh was vice-president of the Erie Railroad, his incumbency of that position being occasionally interrupted by his being called upon to assume the duties of president ad interim. He invariably declined to permanently assume the office of president of the corporation.
  Mr. Marsh engaged with the late Moses Taylor, John I. Blair, and others in construction of railroads in various parts of the country, and until within a few weeks of his death, at the age of eighty-six, he actively superintendent the vast interests under his control. Although he never married, his home at the Astor House was a happy one, and many friends were made welcome there, and many of the older New Yorkers spent care-dispelling hours in his company. Mr. Marsh was the ever-watchful adviser and instructor of his nephew, Nathaniel Marsh, appointed receiver by the courts, as to his duties as secretary, receiver, and president of Erie.
caption: Astor House, New York City 1862
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