Sublime

Alderman Sir Thomas Smythe,

The riddle for a biographer is to explain how this Hudson River aristocrat, a son of privilege who never depended on a paycheck, became the champion of the common man.

Sir Henry Garraway,

My brother loves to play the part of featherbed aristocrat, but he’s far more clever than he lets on.”

The problem with the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy lay in the fact that it was so alluring that it naturally attracted other well-heeled suitors. Indeed, at this very moment it attracted the man who was about to become Jim Hill’s archrival, Edward H. Harriman, of whom it was once said that he feared neither God nor J. P. Morgan.

He held center stage through the 1850s; he had overshadowed them all—Silliman, Dana, Henry, Hall, Gray. The voice of Charles Darwin was still to be heard.

What did it say about him that he’d rather face down a nest of outlaws—outgunned and outmanned—than meet with Lord Harms and his daughter?