Thomas Lord Kimball (1831 - 1899)

Born 1 Oct 1831 in Buxton, York, Maine, USA

Ancestors

Descendants

Died 9 Oct 1899 at age 68 in Omaha, Douglas, Nebraska, USA

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Biography

Tom Kimball is Notable.

Thomas was born in 1831. Thomas Kimball ... He passed away in 1899.

• Railroad man

From “Omaha: The Gate City and Douglas County, Nebraska” is the following biography of Thomas Lord Kimball:

“For more than forty years this name was prominent in the railway circles of the United States. During all this period Thomas Kimball’s whole energy was concentrated on the advancement of the country’s railway interests in the west; and the only thing that stood in the way of his arrival at the topmost official pinnacle in this service was his extreme conscientiousness, which at more than one point in his career, balked at policies then in vogue and under consideration. This unusual moral sensitiveness may have been due to his Puritan ancestry.

His father and grandfather were both soldiers; the latter, Joshua Kimball, fought in the Revolutionary war, and the former, Amos, in the War of 1812. Amos Kimball afterwards ‘turned his sword into a ploughshare’, married Johanna Currier, also known as a strong and exemplary character, and settled down to agricultural pursuits on his farm at Buxton, Maine.

Here Thomas L. Kimball was born, October 1, 1831. As a boy, he was noticed for his mechanical bent, continuous industry, and thirst for study, which he indulged at night, as they relate of Abraham Lincoln, by the blaze of pineknots; the student quality indeed marked his whole life. At sixteen, having mastered the principles of farming, he had also prepared himself for college, but was disappointed of this by a serious two years’ illness. Later he found a business opening at Saco, Maine, with a jewelry firm by whom he was soon established at Biddeford for a few years of success, winning friends and making a record as a citizen quite astonishing in a man of his age. The Eastern Journal, at the time of his leaving Maine to begin the long stretch of his railroad activities, pointed out that record, and sketched his many-sided character in so comprehensive a way that it is worth quoting. ‘Never noisy nor self-assertive, young Kimball was a man of broadest catholicity of spirit, yet he was in his quiet way the chief man of his church, superintendent of the Sunday school, an active trustee of the public schools, an attentive director of the Savings Bank, the alderman of his ward, consultor in all town charities, the working man on committees for lyceum lectures, among the most vigorous of the temperance and anti-slavery workers, an occasional speaker at public meetings, often a sagacious writer for the press- a man in fact so trusted for integrity and intelligence that had he remained in Maine we may say that we had not position, social or political, that would not have been open to him.’

In 1857 he removed to Cincinnati, Ohio, and was engaged as publicity agent by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, consequently making a special study of railway conditions and problems. Becoming their general western passenger agent in 1861, he continued with the company, through various stages of advancement, for twelve years, with headquarters in Cincinnati and later in Chicago. In 1871 he came to Omaha with Colonel Thomas A. Scott, president of the Union Pacific Railroad, who had been prompt in recognizing Mr. Kimball’s special talent for the handling of railway problems. He began his connection with the Union Pacific as general passenger and ticket agent, and after ten years at that post, became successively assistant general manager, general traffic manager, and general manager of the Union Pacific System, and finally in 1889 a vice president of the company and president of the Union Depot Company. His official connection with the Union Pacific terminated in 1897.

In all these years, through all administrations, during the absence and illness of superior officers, Mr. Kimball came to be looked to as the mainstay of the great road in its various departments. His keen insight and unremitting energy aided greatly in the marvelous growth of that immense system. From his first connection with it he planned and introduced methods of expanding its local resources, as for instance a reduced passenger tariff, and the organization of land-buyers’ excursions both in this country and in Europe, to populate the districts along the railway. He learned thoroughly the agricultural, live stock and mineral possibilities of sections tributary to the road, and encouraged the location of industries with a view to developing adjacent land. He always urged the addition of a complete system of branches to the main line, and was most active in bringing this about. Sagacious and exacting in his care of the affairs entrusted to him, he still kept a remarkable hold on the confidence and loyalty of the vast army of Union Pacific employees. This was partly due to his personality and manner- a compound of gentleness and power that gave him a peculiar advantage in his dealings with all sorts and conditions of men- and partly to the strong human sympathy that marked all his relations in life. It is a matter of history that during his long term as guardian of Union Pacific interests, the employees of that road were the best paid and best satisfied force of any railway system in the west.

On his removal to Omaha Mr. Kimball became deeply interested in the business life and upbuilding of the city. In 1879 he was one of the incorporators of the Omaha Electric Company, and in 1888, of its successor, the Nebraska Telephone Company. He was president of the Omaha Thomson-Houston Electric Light Company, a director of the Union National Bank, a founder of the Associated Charities of Omaha, and was identified with many other large enterprises and charities both public and private.

In 1855 Mr. Kimball was united in marriage to Mary Porter Rogers, daughter of Nathaniel Peabody and Mary (Farrand) Rogers of Plymouth, New Hampshire. The children of this marriage are: Frances R., wife of George W. Holdrege, general manager of the Burlington System; Arabel M.; Thomas R., a prominent architect of Omaha; and Richard R., who died in 1915.

The death of Thomas Lord Kimball occurred on the 9th of October, 1899. Measured by years, his was a comparatively short life, but crowded with accomplishment and with such fullness of devotion and of attainment as is really the record of much longer careers. His memory is honored by those who knew him and those who have but heard of him as an example of the best citizenship, and as one of Omaha’s best and most representative citizens.”^[1]

Legacy

• Kimball County, Nebraska is named in his honor.

Sources

1. ↑ Omaha: The Gate City, and Douglas County, Nebraska- Arthur Cooper Wakely, S.J. Clarke Pub. Co., 1917- Vol. II, pp. 818-9

• findagrave.com
• Birth: Maine Births and Christenings, 1739-1900, database, FamilySearch : 4 December 2014), Thomas L. Kimball, 01 Oct 1830; citing Buxton, York, Maine; FHL microfilm 10,594.
• http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf5f59n7gt/ "Thomas Lord Kimball Papers" Online Archive of California, Huntington Library, Manuscripts Department

From behind the ancestry.com subscription wall:

• US Census, 1860
• US, Civil War Draft Registration Records, 1863-1865