|
biography
|
|
Rea, Samuel, Railway official; born at Hollidaysburg.Pa., Sept. 21, 1855; son of James D. Rea and of Ruth (Moore) Rea,
daughter of Thomas Blair Moore of Blair County, Pa., and is a grandson of John Rea, of Chambersburg, Pa., Revolutionary officer and member of the 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th and 13th Congresses, and great-grandson of
Samuel Rea, who came from Ireland to Pennsylvania in 1754 or 1755, and finally settled in what is now Franklin County. He was educated in common schools and academy. He married in 1879 Mary M., daughter of
George Black of Pittsburgh. In 1871 he entered the engineering department of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company as chainman and rodman on the Morrison's Cove, Williamsburg and Bloomfield branches; was with
the Hollidaysburg Iron & Nail Company, 1874-1875: in engineer corps of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, assistant engineer on construction of the suspension bridge over the Monongahela at Pittsburgh,
1875-1877; assistant engineer, Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad, 1877-1879; returned to Pennsylvania System, 1879, as assistant engineer in charge of construction of the extension of the Pittsburgh,
Virginia & Charleston Railway, and also, 1879-1883, engineer in charge of surveys in Westmoreland County and for revision and rebuilding of the Western Pennsylvania Railroad to make it an active low-grade
freight line; transferred to Philadelphia, 1883, as principal assistant engineer; assistant to second vice-president, 1888; resigned, 1889, and became vice-president of the Maryland Central Railway and chief
engineer Baltimore Belt Railroad Company, and located and put under construction a comprehensive surface and underground double-track railroad through that city for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Co.;
resigned on account of ill-health. 1891, and spent a year in rest and travel; appointed assistant to president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, May 25, 1892; first assistant to president, Feb. 16, 1897; fourth vice-president, June 14, 1899; third vice-president since Oct. 10, 1905. Mr. Rea was sent to England by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company in 1892, to make a study of terminals and the underground
railways, then operating and proposed, of London, and as the result of that investigation was identified with the inception and has had from the first direct charge of the work of the Pennsylvania underground
railways, river tunnels and terminals now in course of completion in New York City; he has also had supervision of the promotion and construction of all new lines of the Pennsylvania System, east of
Pittsburgh and Erie, He is also third vice-president of the Northern Central Railway, Philadelphia, Baltimore & Washington Railroad and West Jersey and Seashore Railroad Companies: director of the
Chesapeake & Ohio Railway, Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, Norfolk & Western Railway, Long Island Railroad and other companies, is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, and the
Institution of Civil Engineers of London. Address: Broad Street Station, Philadelphia.
Who's who in Pennsylvania: A biographical dictionary of contemporaries edited by John W. Leonard, 1908
Submitted by Nancy Piper.
|