Leland STANFORD, Congress, CA (1824-1893)

STANFORD, Leland, a Senator from California; born in Watervliet, N.Y., March 9, 1824; pursued an academic course; studied law; admitted to practice in 1848; moved to Port Washington, Wis., the same year and engaged in the practice of law; moved to California in 1852 and opened a general store for miners first in Cold Springs and then in 1855 moved to Sacramento and engaged in mercantile pursuits on a large scale; one of the ‘big four’ who built the Central Pacific Railroad, serving as its president in 1863; involved in several railroads in the West; founder of Leland Stanford Junior University; Governor of California 1861-1863; returned to private business; elected as a Republican to the United States Senate in 1885; reelected in 1891 and served from March 4, 1885, until his death in Palo Alto, Calif., June 21, 1893; chairman, Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds (Fiftieth through Fifty-second Congresses); interment in a masoleum on the grounds of Stanford University.

Bibliography

American National Biography; Dictionary of American Biography; Hoyt, Edwin Palmer. Leland Stanford. New York: Abelard-Schuman, 1967; Tutorow, Norman. The Governor: The Life and Legacy of Leland Stanford, a California Colossus. Spokane: Arthur H. Clark, Co., 2004.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present