Leland Stanford
Amasa Leland Stanford (March 9, 1824 – June 21, 1893) was an American attorney, industrialist, philanthropist, and Republican Party politician from California. He served as the 8th Governor of California from 1862 to 1863 and represented the state in the United States Senate from 1885 until his death in 1893. He and his wife Jane founded Stanford University, named after their late son.[1]
"Senator Stanford" redirects here. For other uses, see Senator Stanford (disambiguation).
Leland Stanford
June 21, 1893 (aged 69)
Palo Alto, California, U.S.
Republican (from 1856)
Whig (until 1856)
- Politician
- businessman
Stanford was a successful merchant and wholesaler who migrated to California during the Gold Rush and built a business empire. He was an influential executive of the Central Pacific Railroad and later the Southern Pacific railroads from 1861 to 1890, giving him tremendous power in the American West and leaving a lasting impact on California.[2][3][4][5][6] He also played a significant role as a shareholder and executive in the early history of Pacific Life and Wells Fargo. He was the first Republican Governor of California. Stanford is widely considered a robber baron.[2][3][4][5][6]
Early life and career[edit]
Leland Stanford was born in 1824 in what was then Watervliet, New York (now the Town of Colonie). He was one of eight children of Josiah and Elizabeth Phillips Stanford. Among his siblings were New York State Senator Charles Stanford (1819–1885) and Australian businessman and spiritualist Thomas Welton Stanford (1832–1918). His immigrant ancestor, Thomas Stanford, settled in Charlestown, Massachusetts, in the 17th century.[7] Later ancestors settled in the eastern Mohawk Valley of central New York about 1720.
Stanford's father was a farmer of some means. Stanford was raised on family farms in the Lisha Kill and Roessleville (after 1836) areas of Watervliet. The family home in Roessleville was called Elm Grove. The Elm Grove home was razed in the 1940s. Stanford attended the common school until 1836 and was tutored at home until 1839. He attended Clinton Liberal Institute, in Clinton, New York, and studied law at Cazenovia Seminary in Cazenovia, New York, in 1841 to 1845. In 1845, he entered the law office of Wheaton, Doolittle, and Hadley in Albany.[7]
After being admitted to the bar in 1848, Stanford moved with many other settlers to Port Washington, Wisconsin, where he began a law practice with Wesley Pierce.[8] His father presented him with a law library said to be the finest north of Milwaukee.[7] In 1850, Stanford was nominated by the Whig Party as Washington County, Wisconsin district attorney.
In 1862 California volunteer troops re-building a military post at the confluence of the San Pedro River and Aravaipa Creek in Arizona Territory named the post Fort Stanford after the governor. However, the post later reverted to its former name, Fort Breckenridge, and in 1866 became Camp Grant.
In 2008, Stanford was inducted into The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts, California Hall of Fame. A relative, Tom Stanford, accepted the honors on his behalf.[45]
The Stanford Memorial Church on the university campus is dedicated to his memory.
Mount Stanford, located in California's Sierra Nevada, is named in his honor.[46]
Central Pacific locomotives named for Stanford[47][48] were
In fiction[edit]
Leland Stanford and Stanford University, fictionalized as Grover Linden and Linden University respectively, feature in Michael Nava, Lay Your Sleeping Head (2016), a mystery novel, the plot of which revolves in part around the fate of the Linden, i.e., Stanford, fortune.