hubert howe bancroft - Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History ...

SAN FRAXCISCO CONVENTION. 543
vention delegates from every county in the state, and
from Oregon and Washington. Its president was
John Bid well; its vice presidents were Edward Lander,
of Washington territory; Alexander P. Aukeny,
of Oregon; E. S. Holden and George W. Crane, of
California; its secretaries, W. Eabe, O. H. Thomas,
and Henry S. Wells. Thomas H. Pearne, a delegate
from Oregon, offered a resolution that the committee
appointed to prepare a memorial to congress, asking
government to aid in the construction of a road
through the territories, to connect at the east boundary
of the state with such road as might be constructed
in California, should be instructed to set
forth the preference of the convention for the central
route. A resolution was finally passed declaring the
preference of the convention for the central route, the
feasibility of which had been demonstrated by the
maintenance upon it, summer and winter, of a stage line.
As to the means by which the California portion of
the Pacific railway was to be constructed, it was proposed
that the states of California and Oregon should
create a debt of $15,000,000 and $5,000,000 respectively,
to aid in the enterprise; also, that a railroad fund
should be created by setting aside funds derived from
the swamp and overflowed lands for internal improvements.
A preference was expressed for a line from
San Francisco via Stockton, to some intersection of
the central route between the 42d and 38th degrees
of latitude, thus making a selection which congress
had never yet ventured to make, or endorse.
At this convention T. D. Judah, the engineer of the
Sacramento valley and other local railroads, was
present as a delegate from Sacramento city. He
was, in fact, the chief promoter of the meeting, being
deeply impressed with a belief in the practicability of
a Pacific railroad, and possessed of a desire to see the
enterprise inaugurated in California; perhaps also,
with an ambition to have his name connected with
it. For months he pondered over the problem, taking