Biography cornelius van horne canadian railway

VAN HORNE, Sir WILLIAM CORNELIUS, railway builder and official, capitalist, and artist; b. 3 Feb. 1843 near Chelsea (Frankfort), Ill., eldest child of Cornelius Covenhoven Van Horne, a lawyer and farmer, and Mary Minier Richards; m. March 1867 Lucy Adaline (Adeleine) Hurd of Joliet, Ill., and they had two sons, one of whom died in childhood, and a daughter; d. 11 Sept.

Biography cornelius van horne canadian railway museum

1915 in Montreal and was buried in Joliet.

Dutch ancestors of the Van Horne family came to North America in the 1630s; William Van Horne’s mother was of German and French-Pennsylvanian stock. The family moved to Joliet in 1851, and when William was 11 his father died, leaving the family in poor circumstances.

William took whatever odd jobs he could find. Among other tasks, he carried messages for the local telegraph company, where he learned the basic elements of telegraphy. His formal schooling ended when, at 14, he was so severely punished for drawing an