American public man and philanthropist, born in Watervliet, NY, on the 9th of March 1824. He was admitted to the bar of New York in 1849; went to California overland and engaged in goldmining in 1852, and in 1856 settled in business in San Francisco. He was one of the organizers of the Central Pacific Railroad Company; secured the requisite Congressional legislation; was made president of the company and superintended the construction of the line. He entered politics as a Republican in 1860, was elected governor of California in 1861, and from 1884 until his death was a United States Senator. Out of a fortune estimated at more than $50,000,000, he gave property valued at $20,000,000 to found, in memory of his son, a university at Palo Alto, to be known as the Leland Stanford Junior University. He died in Palo Alto on the 21st of June 1893.
