"I've been working on the railroad, all the live long day . . ." (52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks 2025 Week 35 theme: "Off to Work")

Children (boys, in particular) love trains - train songs, toy trains, train-watching, and perhaps aspiring to work on a train when they grow up.

 

Trains in Montana 1905 from Winfield Scott Lemon's Collection

Steam engines ushered in the golden age of railroads. The huge demand for this method of transportation provided employment in all matters relating to this industry. Several men in my extended family tree chose railroad careers.

North American Railroaders 

The American railroaders in my own family  all relate to the family of my great great grandmother Barbara Hoover (abt 1834-1890) who had been married 3 times and had had at least one additional relationship. Her first marriage to cousin William Hoover resulted in the birth of Samuel Hoover. The second marriage was to Lewis Edwards; she gave birth to twin daughters Mary "Minnie" and Martha "Grace" Edwards. Barbara's third marriage to George Payton resulted in no children but Barbara had given birth to Charles Edwards between the death of her Edwards husband and her Payton marriage.

1. Charles F. Edwards (1869-1941) 

My great grandfather Charles Edwards left home at 17 to work on the railroad, starting as a call boy and later becoming a brakeman. While working for the railway he met his future wife Mayme Wescott who was working at a Montana restaurant. 

Computer Screenshot of Charles and Mayme's Wedding Photo from a video prepared by his grandson Lloyd Miller

After trying and failing to make his fortune as a fruit farmer in Kalispell, Montana, as a homesteader in Saskatchewan and as a prospector in the Yukon/Alaska gold rush, he periodically returned to the railroad. According to his daughter Marion, he  always worked for the Great Northern Railroad, but when it had a strike in 1914, he went to Canada and got work on the Canadian Pacific Railway ("CPR"). Every Canadian knows the significance of the 1885 completion of the CPR stretching from Atlantic to Pacific in the formation of Canada and the opening of the west to settlers; the year after his stint with the CPR, Charles tried homesteading in Western Canada.

The Great Northern stretched along the northernmost part of the United States from St. Paul, Minnesota to Seattle, Washington. It expanded over the years to include several side lines, including some into Canada.

From the Great Falls Tribune, Great Falls, Montana June 20, 1905, p6 accessed on Newspapers.com

One of the perks of working for the railroad was passes for family travel. This was their general mode of transportation for regular visits to Mayme's family in Wisconsin and  the 1915 move to their Lancer, Saskatchewan homestead, for example. 

After losing his land in Canada, Charles again returned to railroading in the northwestern states, making the family home in Kelso, Washington. He lost a leg while switching when his foot became caught and the train wheels severed his leg.  The accident resulted in a railroad pension, enabling him to buy property at Castle Rock, Washington. It also resulted in somewhat cruel tricks played on at least a couple of his grandchildren who, upon meeting him for the first time, were encouraged to hit his leg with a hammer or poke it with pins.

2. Samuel L. Hoover (1855-1912)

Samuel was Charles Edwards' older half-brother. His was a long career in the railroad business.

Samuel Hoover

A certificate of the Union Pacific Railroad Co. dated 18 December 1898 in Denver certified that he had been employed as a Switchman in the Denver yard from 5 November 1895 until his resignation.

Union Pacific Certificate for Samuel Hoover, Switchman

He was the Master of the Grand Lodge of the Switchmen's Mutual Aid Association when he signed his own Delegate's Credential as a representative of Salt Lake City Lodge No. 71 at the Convention to be held in Dallas, Texas on 19 September 1892.

His Certificate of Examination from the Oregon Short Line Railroad Company Southern Pacific Company - Lines East of Sparks dated 17 September 1910 certified his qualifications as a "Herder" (coupling or decoupling engines upon arrival or departure of trains). More information can be found here about the life of Samuel Hoover. 

3. Henry M. Bradshaw (1879-1946)

Charles and Samuel's half-sister Grace Edwards'  second husband was a man named Henry Bradshaw. The 1920 census had Henry Bradshaw and Grace Bradshaw living in Portland, Oregon.  His age was 41, born Oklahoma and his occupation was as a switchman on the railroad.

Henry Bradshaw and Grace Edwards

4. John Filmore Lemon 

Grace Edwards' first husband was, according to his son Win, "an inveterate gambler" who would take her hard-earned wash money as well as his own small wage check and lose it over the card table. He worked at various odd jobs over the years but deserted her in 1903. I could find no evidence of him being connected to the railroad other than the mystery picture below. (Nor has evidence been found showing that John had divorced his first wife in order to marry Grace in 1891, yet in 1908 the newspapers announced the dissolution of Grace's marriage to him under the heading "Lemon Gets Lemon"!)

John Lemon in foreground on railroad track

5. Winfield Scott Lemon (1884-1966)

Purportedly the son of John Lemon, my half first cousin 2XR was born in Winfield, Kansas to one of twin sisters Mary "Minnie" or Martha "Grace" Hoover. His obituary repeats his own belief that his parents were Minnie Simmers Lemon and Harry Lemon. Minnie was never married to a Lemon; her husbands were Harry Simmers and Claude White.  Win was officially taken to be the son of Grace and her husband John Lemon. The following photo shows Win and his sister Maude at their home in Colorado with Grace and John Lemon. 

Win eventually made a career as a switchman on the railroad. He left school early and found work for the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company in Pueblo, Colorado  at the age of just 13 in order to help with the family finances. The miners' strike of 1902 put him out of work and he walked to Independence, Kansas (554 miles) to find work in the oil fields, but that proved too heavy for him. 

In 1905 he moved to Great Falls, Montana, the home of his uncle Charles Edwards (see #1 above); while there he hired out as a brakeman on the Great Northern Railroad where his uncle also worked. Many different jobs and moves led to a marriage to Anna Inez Boyd and the birth of son Winfield Lester Lemon in 1909.

Although his formal schooling was cut short, he was a man with a love of learning and expanding his abilities. While working full time, his "hobby" was to  concentrate on chemistry and metallurgy for many years, building up his own well-equipped laboratory and shop for research. He said that while working with George Hibler, the chemist for Wasatch Oil Refinery, they developed asphalt. 

1914 Day Coach at the Salt Lake City Depot, Winfield Scott Lemon switchman 2nd from left

Mostly, Winfield worked as a railroader. His railroad service as listed in his history (see Resources):

"1905 -  Great Northern RR - Great Falls, Montana

1906 - Rio Grande Western RR - Salt Lake City, Utah

1907 - Great Northern RR - Great Falls, Montana

1907 - Oregon Shortland RR - Salt Lake City, Utah

1909 - Great Northern RR - Great Falls, Montana

1910 - Oregon Shortland RR - Salt Lake City, Utah

1917 - Utah Junk Local - Midvale, Utah

1918 - Northern Pacific RR - Pasco, Washington

1922-1951 - Union Pacific RR - Salt Lake City, Utah

TOTAL TIME WITH RAILROAD: 31 YEARS, 3 MONTHS, 22 DAYS"

 

Scottish/Canadian Railroaders

Railroads had really started in Great Britain and at one time covered the country with a web of rail lines. My granddaughters' family tree contains the following additional men who made careers on the railroad:

6. James McKimmie Grant (b. 1879)

James McKimmie Grant is my granddaughters' 3rd great grandfather. James was born in Alves, Morayshire, Scotland. By the time of his 1903 marriage to Susan Lawrie, he was in his mid-20s working as a railway clerk. In 1908 he was working as a railway signalman. He advanced from there to become station master in 1928.

2006 photo by Iain Macaulay/The Old Station at Alves  The copyright on this image is owned by Iain Macaulay and is licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.

7. George Lawrie Grant (b. 1908)

James and Susan's son George was born 1908; he is my granddaughters' 2nd great grandfather. At the time of his 18 August 1928 marriage to Dora Flora Burns in Kilmany, Fife, he was listed as a railway clerk with an address in "Railway Cottage, Wormit". (Within a few months they had moved to Kinglassie, Fife, so the Wormit connection appears to have been brief.)

Wormit was just a hamlet until the Tay Rail Bridge over the Firth of Tay opened in 1878. This connected it to Dundee on the other side of the Firth and made its owner, the North British Railway Company, the predominant player in the battle for railway supremacy in Scotland. It was the longest railway bridge in the world at the time.

I admit to having gone down a deep rabbit hole at this point, but my engineer granddaughter will be interested to learn of the disaster that had befallen that first bridge, long before her 2nd great grandfather lived in the vicinity. The bridge had been open for less than two years when a terrible storm caused the 13 central high girders to collapse. A Court of Inquiry placed the blame on the design by civil engineer Thomas Bouch, though there is some evidence that the blame should have been shared more broadly. Within 5 years, the new Tay Railway Bridge was constructed; it is over 2 miles long. A wonderful silent black and white film was shot crossing the new bridge in 1897 and can be viewed here. 

Dusking Tay Bridge with stump from original bridge highlighted in the setting sun - 2007 photo by Ross2085. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. 

8. James Grant (1928-2001)

Railroading carried on into the next Grant generation. George Lawrie Grant's son James born shortly after his parents moved to Kinglassie, Fife, Scotland was my granddaughters' great grandfather. After his stint in the British army, he moved to the railway hub of Kapuskasing, Ontario, Canada. He sent for his wife Marian to join him, but she hated life in Northern Ontario and moved to Montreal, Quebec; James soon followed. He spent his life as an engineer for the Canadian National Railway ("CNR") system, the headquarters of which were in Montreal.  He was chosen to drive the new Via Rail train when CPR and CNR passenger businesses were combined in the late 1970s. He worked there until he retired. 

In my extended family tree, working on the railroad seems to have ended with James Grant's retirement. Once a viable career path chosen by many, it has faded from the list of common jobs but children still often answer the question of what they want to be when they grow up with an enthusiastic "A train engineer!"

Some Resources:

• Miller, Marion Frances Edwards; My Memories, personal memoir written for her family in January 1978 from her home at 5405 Union Street, Lexington, Michigan
• Lemon, Winfield Scott, "Compilation of History prepared in response to constant requests from grandson Dick", Privately printed c.1965
• "The History of the Tay Bridge Dundee," Network Rail website https://www.networkrail.co.uk/who-we-are/our-history/iconic-infrastructure/the-history-of-the-tay-bridge-dundee/ accessed 8 August 2In m025