James Ward Eddy (1832-1916)
1832 – Born May 30 in Java, New York; the son of John Eddy and Caroline Ward.
1850 – Educated at Genesee Wesleyan Seminary and Genesee College in Lima, New York; becomes a school teacher.
1853 – Moves to Illinois.
1855 – Studies law and is admitted to the bar in Chicago, Illinois; begins practicing law in Batavia, Illinois, serves on the Board of Education and the Board of Supervisors, and subsequently becomes friends with fellow Illinois lawyer Abraham Lincoln.
1857 – Marries Isabelle A. Worsley Feb. 19 in Kane County, Illinois.
1858 – Daughter Carrie born.
1861 – In Washington, DC, on April 14, at the invitation of the Attorney General to discuss a federal judgeship in New Mexico he enlists in and serves with the Frontier Guard, as one of 116 citizen soldiers charged with protecting the nation’s Capitol, the White House and President Abraham Lincoln during the chaotic first few weeks of the Civil War.
1865 – Becomes one of the officers of the Illinois & Fox River Railroad.
1866 – As a member of the House Legislature from Kane County, he obtains a charter for the Millington Canal & Water Power Company.
1867 – Elected as a member of the Illinois House of Representatives.
1868 – Son George is born.
1869 – Speaks at the Reunion of the 124th Illinois Regiment held in Batavia, as reported in the October 2 issue of the Sacramento Daily Union.
1871 – Elected a state senator in Illinois.
1881 – Relocates to Arizona; becomes president of the Arizona Mineral Belt Railroad and commences construction of a rail connection from the southern part of the state to the existing Atchinson, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway in the north.
1883 – Halted from a lack of funding, the Arizona Mineral Belt Railroad is never completed and the company is dissolved.
1891 – Son George dies in Arizona at 23, reportedly from consumption (tuberculosis).
1896 – Moves to California in March from which he surveys the first transmission line for water power from the Kern River to Los Angeles; in October, his wife Isabelle dies.
1901 – Upon his proposal receiving city approval in May, he constructs Angels Flight, an inclined funicular railway in Los Angeles beginning in August; it is completed in four months and opens to great acclaim and success December 31.
1902 – Marries Jane Martha Fisher, October 23, in Los Angeles County.
1903 – Named in December as president of the Griffith Park Railway; his project to build a funicular there as part of a proposed development to the park is ultimately abandoned when Henry Huntington breaks an agreement to build a connecting Los Angeles Railway Company line from the city into the park.
1905 – Completely rebuilds Angels Flight with newly designed cars running on elevated trestles, establishing a uniform 33-degree grade; financially backs the construction/completion of the Hill Crest Inn, a five-story, 47-unit apartment building on Olive Street immediately next door to Angels Flight.
1907 – An August 24 Los Angeles Express feature is printed exploring his time with the Frontier Guard in 1861.
1910 – Remodels Angels Flight’s arch and station house in the Beaux Arts style.
1912 – Sells Angels Flight and retires, moving to a home he has built in Eagle Rock, a community northeast of downtown Los Angeles where he then serves as vice-president of the California Children’s Home, president of the Los Angeles Orthopedic Hospital, and as a member of the Chamber of Commerce.
1913 – His wife Jane dies in March.
1915 – A June 3 article in the Eagle Rock Sentinel reports him speaking at an event honoring Decoration Day (now Memorial Day) about his time in Washington, DC, during the outbreak of the Civil War.
1916 – Eddy dies in April at his home in Eagle Rock. He, his two wives, daughter and son are interred at the Eddy Family plot within Hollywood Memorial Park (now Hollywood Forever Cemetery).
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