| 英文簡介： | A story of Stanford, the university, is not complete without a history of Stanford, the man. The fifth of eight children, Leland Stanford was born in 1824 at the family home on a farm near Albany, New York. Hard work and schooling filled his early years and in 1848, after three years in an Albany law firm, he was admitted to practice. In search of greater opportunity, he went to Port Washington, Wisconsin, on Lake Michigan, to hang out his shingle. Two years later he married Jane Eliza Lathrop, daughter of a well-to-do Albany merchant. His practice in Port Washington was successful but in 1852, after a fire wiped out his office and $3,000 library, his pioneer spirit sprung into high gear and he joined his five brothers in their mercantile business in the gold fields of California. Leaving his wife in Albany, he went to California by way of the Isthmus. He spent two years in the Stanford Brothers'' branch store in Michigan Bluff, 30 miles northeast of Auburn. Life was hard. Stanford slept on the counter under buffalo robes with his boots for a pillow except when flood waters forced him to hoist sugar barrels and other articles to the counter for safekeeping. Nevertheless, Stanford prospered. In three years he bought out the Stanford Brothers'' store in Sacramento and he returned to Albany for his wife. Stanford became the most active member of a small group organizing the Republican Party in California and was the party candidate for state treasurer in 1857, and for governor in 1859. There had been no chance for election, but the party was gaining a foothold. In 1860, he stumped the state for Abraham Lincoln and then met with the new president in Washington. In 1861, the California Republican convention nominated Stanford for governor, and he won decisively after stumping the state with Jane Stanford at his side. Stanford succeeded not only in holding California in the Union, but also saw to it that the state contributed substantially to Union victory. Stanford later would be elected to the U.S. Senate in 1885. He was reelected in 1891, but died in 1893. Stanford''s part in building the first transcontinental railroad was of even greater importance in keeping America united as a republic. San Francisco businessmen, well satisfied with the profits they were making from sea routes, turned their backs on the hazardous undertaking. The steep, snow-covered slopes of the Sierra Nevada could just as easily turn the builders into bankrupt paupers as princes of industry. But a group of Sacramento merchants took the high-stakes gamble and formed the Central Pacific Railroad company to lay track eastward to connect with the westward-building Union Pacific. Stanford, who had demonstrated business acumen and qualities of leadership, was elected president of the venture. Congress voted generous land grants and bonded loans, but the main sums had to be supplied by the companies. Stanford, Collis P. Huntington, Mark Hopkins and Charles Crocker emerged as the "Big Four" who risked their financial hides and pushed their crews to meet the Union Pacific at a point as far east as possible. On May 10, 1869, trains of the two railroads drew together at Promontory, Utah. Leland Stanford wielded a sledge of Nevada silver to tap a spike of California gold into a polished laurel tie. The blows heralding completion of the transcontinental railroad were transmitted over telegraph wire attached to the spike. |
