Anna Judah & the Central Pacific Railroad by Zina Abbott

During 2019, the 150 year anniversary of the Transcontinental Railroad, I wrote a series of blog posts across more than one blog about the topic. One was named “T. D. Judah and the Big Four,” which you may find by CLICKING HERE.

I was especially pleased when I visited the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento, California, and found—tucked away in a corner—a display featuring Theodore Judah’s wife, Anna Judah, and the role she played in her husband’s success.

Anna Feron Pierce Judah

Anna Feron Pierce was the daughter of John Joyce and Eliza Dwight ne'Field Pierce. She married Theodore Dehone Judah, the son of Henry Raymond and Mary Jane ne'Reece Judah, on 10 May 1849 at Greenfield, Massachusetts.

 

Theodore Dehone Judah

A graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, Theodore Judah worked on the planning and funding for the transcontinental RR as an engineer specializing in bridges and railroads. He conceived the route the transcontinental railroad could use to cross the Sierra Nevada Mountains—a feat believed by most engineers of the time to be impossible. 

Big Four

He eventually convinced the group of California businessmen who became known that the Big Four—Leland Stanford, Collis P. Huntington, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker—of the feasibility of his plan. They provided him funding to survey the route and named him as the Chief Engineer for the Central Pacific Railroad.

As for Anna Judah, she did not limit herself to domestic work and charitable activities. As a talented artist, her husband invited her to obtain some “pantaloons” and join him in the mountains. While he surveyed and mapped a route, she used her art ability to capture the landscape through which the railroad would pass. She sketched the trails and terrain. She also drew several details pictures of the wildflowers found along the proposed route.

Her intend for her artwork was to support her husband’s goal of obtaining government funding for the transcontinental route. One of the chief obstacles to getting a bill passed was the increasing conflict between the North and the South over the slavery issue. Judah was determined to find a route other than the one through the southern states and territories advocated by then-Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis. During his lobbying trips to Washington, D.C., Anna organized Theodore’s notes and maps.

Theodore and Anna Judah in Civil War Washington, D.C.

Anna also set up a small museum display of her artwork which she described as far as how it related to the central transcontinental route her  husband had surveyed. Using the visual scenes along with her own persuasions, she was able to influence several congressmen to support the proposed route. This helped passage of the Pacific Railway Act of 1862, which was signed into law on July 1, 1862 by President Abraham Lincoln.

Judah Headstone

 

Theodore grew disenchanted with the way the Big Four were conducting business. In an effort to obtain funding so he could buy them out, he returned from California to Washington, D.C. by ship. He contracted malaria on that voyage. Shortly after arriving home, be became seriously ill and died just as construction on the railroad began.

Anna Judah lived for thirty-two years after her husband’s death. During that time, she continually fought against efforts by the Big Four to write her late husband’s role over the success of the Central Pacific Railroad into obscurity. She kept and preserved documents her husband brought back to Washington, D.C. rather than submit to their demands they be turned over to the rail company. Living in a condition near poverty after his passing, she devoted her time to keeping her late husband’s legacy alive. On the 1880 census, she lived with her brother. The couple had no children.

To see the display at the California State Railroad Museum and some of Anna's artwork, please CLICK HERE to view the article, “Anna Judah Far More Than Theodore Judah’s Victorian Housewife."

In my most recent release, The Mine Owner's Rescue, both my bride and groom board the Central Pacific Railway. To find the book description and purchase options, 

please CLICK HERE.

 

 

Sources:

https://express.adobe.com/page/WHQXAgMtd1dG7/

https://www.fromthepage.com/stanforduniversityarchives/jls/article/61885

https://www.facebook.com/goldenspikeNPS/posts/happy-international-womens-day-during-womens-history-month-the-national-park-ser/722061296770088/

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/10915744/anna_feron-judah