Soule & Sanderson

[NW Mailing List]

This sounds like a terrific story. It needs to be published.

 

Good luck

 

Phil Mortimer

 

From: NW-Mailing-List [mailto:nw-mailing-list-bounces at nwhs.org] On Behalf Of
NW Mailing List
Sent: Saturday, October 1, 2016 4:07 PM
To: nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org
Subject: Soule & Sanderson

 

Abram,

 

You trumped my next post with the Biographical Directory of Railroad
Officials. Soule's appointment was officially announced to the general
public on May 17, 1891 in the Sunday edition of The Roanoke Times, page 1.
The article matches what you found in the Bio-Dir'y. But of course the paper
couldn't finish out his career as the Bio Directory does.

 

I didn't want to get too wordy in my original post so I stopped with Mr.
Soule being sustained by the board . . . like info-mercials . . . but wait,
there's more.

 

"Soon after there was a third bankruptcy and Major Henry Fink was made
receiver. Under his leadership things got rapidly better. All the
Pennsylvania crowd were discharged, including the general manager and
purchasing agent. Then Mr. Jas. M. Barr from the Great Northern Railway was
made vice-president and general manager with full charge. He appointed a Mr.
W. H. Lewis who had been under him out on the Great Northern to be
superintendent of motive power and I was made general master mechanic for
the whole line. Things went on very well thus until Mr. Barr decided to give
up railway work in the East and was given the position of vice-president
with complete control of the management of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe
Railway. He left us to take over this greater and wider field, which was in
great need of reorganization. After a time as he found that he could not
trust the then superintendent of motive power, he sent for me to come out
there to him and help to clean that organization up."

 

R.P.C. made the move to Kansas where he was the Ass't Super. while they
gathered date, much as Mr. Soule had done. Before Mr. Barr could effect a
real change there were unforeseen deaths on the Board of Directors and the
new members threw the balance of power into the camp that did not support
Mr. Barr and his reorganization. With Mr. Barr gone, RPC resigned.

 

I have one of only two or three copies of my great-grandfather's auto-bio.
It was self-published in 1940 and I can't imagine he had more than a dozen
bound copies made and even that is a high estimate since all his siblings
had already died and he only had one child, a son, my maternal grandfather.

 

I am presently taking what R.P.C. wrote and expanding it. Besides his
auto-bio he also left four photo albums (he was an early amateur
photographer) with additional notes. Between that and old newspapers and
journals I'm trying to put things in context. I've been at it for three
years off and on. It is my hope that I will have it in publishable form by
the end of next year.

 

Peter Getz

Rockwall, TX

 

  _____  

From: NW-Mailing-List <nw-mailing-list-bounces at nwhs.org> on behalf of
nw-mailing-list-request at nwhs.org <nw-mailing-list-request at nwhs.org>
Sent: Saturday, October 1, 2016 7:32 AM
To: nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org
Subject: NW-Mailing-List Digest, Vol 139, Issue 1 

 

Send NW-Mailing-List mailing list submissions to
        nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org

To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
        https://pairlist6.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/nw-mailing-list
Message: 4
Date: Sat, 1 Oct 2016 08:30:32 -0400
From: NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
To: NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
Subject: Re: R. H. SOULE at Roanoke -- JOSEPH H. SANDS
Message-ID: <mailman.264.1475325166.4124.nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Peter Getz graciously furnished a quote from his Great-Grandfather's
autobiography, viz. --

"... and Mr. R. H. Soule was made Superintendent of Motive Power. Things
went along pretty smoothly for a time, then Mr. Soule began to suspect that
the purchase of supplies and equipment was not being handled quite
honestly. He began to keep confidential records. After some months of quiet
watching and investigating he laid some facts before the general manager
and was pooh-poohed and told to mind his own business. He would not rest
and gathered a lot of data, which he kept secret till he was ready, then
resigned and demanded a hearing before the board of directors, got it and
was sustained by the board."

WELL NOW, I THINK WE HAVE HIT PAYDIRT HERE !

Joseph H. Sands was the General Superintendent and (later) General Manager
of the N&W between 3-31-1885 and 4-15-1897 (according to Biographical
Directory of Railway Officials in America - 1906 ed.)

Sands was apparently terminated rather quickly by the Board of Directors,
who gave him a vote of "No Confidence." The details appear never to have
been divulged beyond the Board Room (unless someone can examine the Minute
Books of the B.o.D.) and the episode has been a matter of speculation ever
since.

Richard Hermann Soule, in the 1901 and 1906 ed's. of the Biographical
Directory, lists his term of employment with the N&W as June 1891 to
7-1-1897.

Sands "ceased to be" General Manager 4-15-1897. Soule says he himself left
the N&W 7-1-1897.

Can we put 2 and 2 together at this point...? This may have solved a
mystery that has been around for 119 years.

I am attaching the bios of both Joseph Sands and Richard H. Soule, as
lifted from the 1906 ed. Biographical Directory of Railway Officials of
America.

BTW, Peter...  I didn't see your Great-Grandfather's name mentioned in your
post, so I did a couple searches and found that he was R.P.C. Sanderson,
who factored in the introduction of the Belpaire firebox on American
locomotives.  Where can I get a copy of his autobiography, "Haps and
Mishaps" ?

-- abram burnett



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://pairlist6.pair.net/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/attachments/20161002/a16e1e56/attachment.html>