Amasa Stone
Amasa Stone built more railroad between Cleveland and Buffalo than any other single figure. He was president of the Cleveland, Painesville and Ashtabula Railroad, founder of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern, and builder of hundreds of miles of rail and dozens of bridges across northern Ohio. His fortune at his death in 1883 — one of the largest in Cleveland — financed Western Reserve University's move to Cleveland, the Cleveland Orphan Asylum, and his daughter Clara's marriage to John Hay, future Secretary of State under McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt.
Stone's life also contains the single most catastrophic railroad accident in Cleveland's history. On December 29, 1876, an iron bridge he had designed collapsed under a passing passenger train at Ashtabula, Ohio, killing ninety-two people. The bridge had been built against the advice of the original engineer. Stone never recovered. He took his own life seven years later.
A New England Builder
Amasa Stone was born in Charlton, Massachusetts, in 1818. He left formal schooling at fourteen to apprentice as a carpenter and by his early twenties was building bridges for the Western Railroad of Massachusetts. He developed a reputation for completing bridges on schedule and at cost — a combination notable enough, in the chaotic railroad-construction economy of the 1840s, to bring him successive promotions.
By 1848 he had formed a partnership with his brother-in-law William Howe, inventor of the Howe truss, and held the western rights to that advanced wooden bridge design. In 1850, at the invitation of Cleveland capitalists building the Cleveland, Painesville and Ashtabula Railroad, Stone moved to Cleveland to take charge of construction.
The Lake Shore Line
Between 1850 and 1870, Stone oversaw the construction of what became the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway — the critical through-route between Buffalo and Chicago along the south shore of Lake Erie. The line was consolidated from several regional railroads, most built under Stone's direction, and became one of the most profitable railroads in the United States. It was absorbed by Cornelius Vanderbilt's New York Central in 1869.
Stone by then was wealthy enough to retire from active operation. He turned his attention to civic philanthropy, real estate, and his adult children's affairs — most consequentially his daughter Clara's marriage to the journalist and diplomat John Hay in 1874.
The Ashtabula Disaster
On the evening of December 29, 1876, the Lake Shore's westbound Pacific Express was crossing the 159-foot iron truss bridge over the Ashtabula River, seventy miles east of Cleveland, in a severe snowstorm. The bridge failed. All eleven of the train's cars fell into the ravine below, along with the second locomotive. The kerosene stoves that heated the passenger cars set fire to the wreckage.
Of 159 passengers and crew, at least 92 died — some in the fall, most in the fire. The Ashtabula disaster remains among the ten worst railway accidents in American history.
The investigation was devastating to Stone. He had designed the bridge himself over the objections of his chief engineer Joseph Tomlinson, who had resigned rather than certify it. Stone had insisted on scaling a modified Howe truss beyond its tested parameters. The Ohio legislature's commission concluded that Stone bore personal responsibility. Charles Collins, who had inherited Tomlinson's position, committed suicide on January 19, 1877. Stone would survive another six years.
Philanthropy and Suicide
Stone's post-Ashtabula years were shadowed but productive. In 1882 he made what was then the single largest philanthropic gift in Cleveland's history: $500,000 to endow the relocation of Western Reserve College from Hudson, Ohio, to a new University Circle campus, where it became Western Reserve University — the predecessor of Case Western Reserve. He also funded the Cleveland Orphan Asylum and was a major donor to the First Presbyterian Church.
On May 11, 1883, he shot himself in his home at 1255 Euclid Avenue, age 65. His fortune passed to his daughters — Clara Stone Hay, and Flora, who would go on to marry Samuel Mather.
Life Timeline
- Born1818
April 27 in Charlton, Massachusetts. - Howe Truss Partnership1848
Licenses western rights to the Howe bridge truss. - Arrives in Cleveland1850
Takes charge of CP&A Railroad construction. - Lake Shore Consolidated1870
Buffalo-to-Chicago under New York Central. - Clara Marries John Hay1874
Future Secretary of State. - Ashtabula Bridge Collapses1876
December 29. 92 killed. - Western Reserve Endowment1882
$500,000 gift relocates the college to Cleveland. - Dies by Suicide1883
May 11 at his Euclid Avenue home, age 65.