William Cornelius Van Horne

Sir William Cornelius Van Horne, (February 3, 1843September 11, 1915) is most famous for overseeing the construction of the first Canadian transcontinental railway, a project that was completed in 1885, in under half the projected time. He succeeded Lord Mount Stephen as president of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) in 1888. He was responsible for launching the sea transport division of the CPR, which inaugurated regular service between Vancouver and Hong Kong in 1891. He also presided over the expansion of the CPR into the luxury hotel business in the 1890s. He was also a prominent member of the syndicate that created the Cuba Railroad Company in 1900. He lived at the Van Horne Mansion in Montreal's Golden Square Mile. Ancestry and early life Born in 1843 in rural Illinois, Van Horne moved with his family to Joliet, Illinois, when he was eight years old. He was the eldest child of Cornelius Covenhoven Van Horne (1794–1854) by his second wife Mary Minier Richards of Sandusky, Ohio. Cornelius studied law at Union College, but took his family out west to seek his fortune farming. Misfortune followed as his house, barns and law books were destroyed by fire, and his first wife died shortly afterwards. Abandoning farming, he returned to the law and became Recorder of Will County, Illinois, moving his family to Joliet, Illinois. Cornelius was active in getting the city its first charter, and because of this he was elected Joliet's first mayor. When the city later built a new bridge it was named the Van Horne Bridge. Van Horne's grandfather, Abraham Van Horne, graduated from Queens College (now Rutgers) with avocation for the ministry, and received his license to preach in 1792 from the Reformed Church of America. He held three pastorates, one at Wawarsing, one near Kingston, New York and his last at Caughnawaga (now Fonda, New York), from 1796 to 1833.