Customer Reviews

The Great Persuader

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Lavender is an excellent writer and serious history scholar. This is an outstanding book, and well deserves a space on the book shelf of any serious student of the Central Pacific or Southern Pacific. I've had my copy for years, and I can assure you it is well dog-eared and tatered from heavy and frequent reference. Lavender's sources are thorough (although he did not access the huge archive of Huntington papers at Syracuse University) and his remarks in general correct and precisely on target. Of the three great Huntington biographies, (the others are Cerinda Evan's Collis Potter Huntington and Oscar Lewis' The Big Four), this is by far the best, though I highly recommend Evan's work as well. This is a must-have book on this subject.

Talk about most unlikely to succeed! Collis Huntington was born in Harwinton, Connecticut in 1821 and became an itinerant peddler, primarily throughout the South. But he saved sufficient capital to become a successful hardware merchant in Oneonta, New York. When gold was discovered in California he headed west, not to search for gold, but to sell mining supplies to those that did. After an inauspicious start, he was to become a very successful, well connected business man. In 1861 he would form a partnership with Charles Crocker, Mark Hopkins and Leland Stanford, former Governor of California, to begin construction of the western portion of the Transcontinental Railroad.

Founding the Central Pacific Railroad, over the next seven years he would become the primary mover and shaker in the endeavor. Assuming the eastern responsibilities of the venture he led CPRR's financing, legal, lobbying and major competitive efforts in New York City and Washington, DC against their main rival, the Union Pacific Railroad. Starting in Sacramento, California while the UP started in Omaha, Nebraska, these two railroading giants would race each other across the continent to see who would control the most track for what was the largest government financed, internal improvement of its time. At stake was nothing more than the ultimate settlement of the interior United States, including the development of new towns, subjugation of the Native American Plains tribes, the control of vast amounts of natural resources and yes, massive wealth accumulation. The CPRR would win its race with the Union Pacific, but only by the skin of its teeth. The partners would go on to control railroading in the western United States!

With the initial transcontinental road completed in 1869, Huntington and his partners would reorganize their properties to form the Southern Pacific Railroad. So successful would they be that they would traverse the continent yet again, developing a second transcontinental rail system along the path originally espoused by Jefferson Davis prior to the Civil War. In the meantime, Collis would develop yet a third major road, the Chesapeake and Ohio, linking the Midwest with the Atlantic Ocean at Richmond, Virginia and developing the towns of Newport News, Virginia and Huntington, West Virginia. He was a visionary chartering a New York City subway system 50 years before its time.

Collis Huntington was the most successful railroader ever, defeating notables such as Jay Gould, Jay Cooke and William Durant among many, many others. If you are interested in the historic impact of railroading on the United States you can find no better book than The Great Persuader by David Lavender. Lavender's works are always known for their original research, keen insight and remarkable analysis. This work does not disappoint. Well written in the extreme, Lavender takes you back to another time, before the word entrepreneur was coined, when capitalism's rules were different and enormous economic risk taking had the backing of the Federal government.

A fascinating look at one the great rail road builders. A man who was fundamental to building two transcontinental railroads, a major eastern railroad and the nation's premier shipyard. The book describes his achievements, failures, attributes and flaws. It also gives a vivid view of life in gold rush California and the later trials in building the Central Pacific through the Rockies. Although commissioned by the Huntington family, it seems to provide a balanced view of the man. His sometime questionable dealings are well presented, and explained within the context of a different era. If the book has a flaw, it is the very detailed explanations of the stock and bond manipulations. But overall, it is the story of one of the true builders of the 19th century.