Andrew Onderdonk
Encyclopedia
Construction
In the fields of architecture and civil engineering, construction is a process that consists of the building or assembling of infrastructure. Far from being a single activity, large scale construction is a feat of human multitasking...
contractor who worked on several major projects including the San Francisco seawall
Seawall
A seawall is a form of coastal defence constructed where the sea, and associated coastal processes, impact directly upon the landforms of the coast. The purpose of a seawall is to protect areas of human habitation, conservation and leisure activities from the action of tides and waves...
in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
and the Canadian Pacific Railway
Canadian Pacific Railway
The Canadian Pacific Railway , formerly also known as CP Rail between 1968 and 1996, is a historic Canadian Class I railway founded in 1881 and now operated by Canadian Pacific Railway Limited, which began operations as legal owner in a corporate restructuring in 2001...
in British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
. He was born on August 30, 1848 in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
to an established Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
family. He received his education at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Stephen Van Rensselaer established the Rensselaer School on November 5, 1824 with a letter to the Rev. Dr. Samuel Blatchford, in which van Rensselaer asked Blatchford to serve as the first president. Within the letter he set down several orders of business. He appointed Amos Eaton as the school's...
. He married Sarah Delia Hilman of Plainfield
Plainfield, New Jersey
Plainfield is a city in Union County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city's population increased to a record high of 49,808....
, New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
. After starting his career surveying
Surveying
See Also: Public Land Survey SystemSurveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, and science of accurately determining the terrestrial or three-dimensional position of points and the distances and angles between them...
townsites and roads in New Jersey, he headed west to work as a general manager for financier
Financier
Financier is a term for a person who handles typically large sums of money, usually involving money lending, financing projects, large-scale investing, or large-scale money management. The term is French, and derives from finance or payment...
Darius Ogden Mills on several engineering
Engineering
Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...
contracts. He died in Oscawana-on-the Hudson, New York on June 21, 1905.
San Francisco
His first major project was the San Francisco seawall. This project took three years and involved constructing ferry slipFerry slip
A ferry slip is a specialized docking facility that receives a ferryboat or train ferry. A similar structure called a barge slip receives a barge or car float that is used to carry wheeled vehicles across a body of water....
s and seawalls for the San Francisco Harbour.
Canadian Pacific Railway
In 1879, he won a series of contractContract
A contract is an agreement entered into by two parties or more with the intention of creating a legal obligation, which may have elements in writing. Contracts can be made orally. The remedy for breach of contract can be "damages" or compensation of money. In equity, the remedy can be specific...
s to build the western section of what is now the Canadian Pacific Railway. Working directly for the Canadian government
Government of Canada
The Government of Canada, formally Her Majesty's Government, is the system whereby the federation of Canada is administered by a common authority; in Canadian English, the term can mean either the collective set of institutions or specifically the Queen-in-Council...
, he built the 127 mile section from Vancouver to Savona
Savona, British Columbia
Savona is a small community located at the west end of Kamloops Lake, where the Thompson River exits it. It is approximately halfway between Kamloops and Cache Creek along the Trans-Canada Highway...
(near Kamloops
Kamloops, British Columbia
Kamloops is a city in south central British Columbia, at the confluence of the two branches of the Thompson River and near Kamloops Lake. It is the largest community in the Thompson-Nicola Regional District and the location of the regional district's offices. The surrounding region is more commonly...
). When those sections were complete he continued building eastward under contract with the Canadian Pacific Railway until he ran out of rail in Eagle Pass in 1885.
Onderdonk and his wife, moved to Yale
Yale, British Columbia
Yale is an unincorporated town in the Canadian province of British Columbia. It was founded in 1848 by the Hudson's Bay Company as Fort Yale by Ovid Allard, the appointed manager of the new post, who named it after his superior, James Murray Yale, then Chief Factor of the Columbia District...
, British Columbia to supervise the construction. Yale was the head of navigation for steamships on the Fraser River
Fraser River
The Fraser River is the longest river within British Columbia, Canada, rising at Fraser Pass near Mount Robson in the Rocky Mountains and flowing for , into the Strait of Georgia at the city of Vancouver. It is the tenth longest river in Canada...
and very near the starting point for his first contract at Emory's Bar. It was not until 1882 that the contract was let for the section between Yale and Port Moody.
Chinese workers
One of the more controversial aspects of Onderdonk's work in British Columbia was his use of ChineseOverseas Chinese
Overseas Chinese are people of Chinese birth or descent who live outside the Greater China Area . People of partial Chinese ancestry living outside the Greater China Area may also consider themselves Overseas Chinese....
workers. From Emory's Bar to Savona, the railway had to be built through the Fraser Canyon
Fraser Canyon
The Fraser Canyon is an 84 km landform of the Fraser River where it descends rapidly through narrow rock gorges in the Coast Mountains en route from the Interior Plateau of British Columbia to the Fraser Valley...
with immense cliffs requiring extensive and expensive tunnel
Tunnel
A tunnel is an underground passageway, completely enclosed except for openings for egress, commonly at each end.A tunnel may be for foot or vehicular road traffic, for rail traffic, or for a canal. Some tunnels are aqueducts to supply water for consumption or for hydroelectric stations or are sewers...
ling. Against the wishes of much of the white British Columbia population and the new province's government, which wanted British railway workers as settler-colonists, he got permission from the federal government to import Chinese workers from both California and China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, as the Canadian national government wanted to save money by hiring workers at lower costs than would be possible with workers from Britain. The white population also feared wage decreases and job loss because of undercutting the much lower wages paid to Chinese workers. Onderdonk told the federal government that if he could not use Chinese workers, the railway could not be built, and the government of British Columbia was forced to accept Ottawa's plans to cut costs in order to get the railway built.
Historians estimate he brought in several thousand Chinese from China and many more thousand from California. The Chinese workers were always kept on crews separate from the white workers and often given the most dangerous jobs including the tunnel blasting using the highly unstable nitroglycerin explosive
Explosive material
An explosive material, also called an explosive, is a reactive substance that contains a great amount of potential energy that can produce an explosion if released suddenly, usually accompanied by the production of light, heat, sound, and pressure...
. Many Chinese were killed in accidents or died of scurvy
Scurvy
Scurvy is a disease resulting from a deficiency of vitamin C, which is required for the synthesis of collagen in humans. The chemical name for vitamin C, ascorbic acid, is derived from the Latin name of scurvy, scorbutus, which also provides the adjective scorbutic...
during the winter, though part of the blame for the scurvy lies with the workers' dietary reliance on rice
Rice
Rice is the seed of the monocot plants Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima . As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and the West Indies...
, mats of which were part of their pay system and they had actual little cash on hand because of debts owed to the Chinese labour contractors who had sold their services to Onderdonk. Unlike the white workers, injured Chinese workers were not provided access to the company hospital and were abandoned to the rest of the workers to help. At the end of construction, the Chinese labour contracting companies abandoned their responsibilities; thousands of workers were left stranded and living in caves without food and water in the desert heat of the mountains surrounding Spences Bridge
Spences Bridge, British Columbia
Spences Bridge is a community in the Canadian province of British Columbia, situated 23 miles north east of Lytton and 32 miles from Ashcroft. In 1892, the population included 32 people of European ancestry and 130 First Nations people. There were 5 general stores, 3 hotels, one Church of England...
and were only gotten out of the area after white charities in Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
sponsored tickets to get them home.
Discrimination
Discrimination
Discrimination is the prejudicial treatment of an individual based on their membership in a certain group or category. It involves the actual behaviors towards groups such as excluding or restricting members of one group from opportunities that are available to another group. The term began to be...
and racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
led to occasional fights between the Chinese workers and the white workers, and the murder of a white foreman by a mob of Chinese workers at Camp 23 near Lytton
Lytton, British Columbia
Lytton in British Columbia, Canada, sits at the confluence of the Thompson River and Fraser River on the east side of the Fraser. The location has been inhabited by the Nlaka'pamux people for over 10,000 years, and is one of the earliest locations settled by non-natives in the Southern Interior of...
in response to the firing of three workers. Generally the Chinese were seen by management as efficient, hard working and well behaved workers, though many thousands deserted to the goldfields rather than stay in the harsh conditions of the railway camps.
Canadian Pacific contracts
When Onderdonk finished the five government contracts, he undertook contracts directly with the Canadian Pacific Railway to build eastward to meet the track being built from the east. Unlike the section in the Fraser Canyon, the section east of Savona was much easier to build. The route followed the south shore of Kamloops Lake, through the city of Kamloops, then along the South Thompson RiverThompson River
The Thompson River is the largest tributary of the Fraser River, flowing through the south-central portion of British Columbia, Canada. The Thompson River has two main branches called the South Thompson and the North Thompson...
, Little Shuswap Lake
Little Shuswap Lake
Little Shuswap Lake is a small lake in the Thompson River basin of the southern Interior of British Columbia, Canada, which sits at the transition between the Thompson Country to the west and the Shuswap Country to the east...
, the Little River
Little River (Shuswap)
The Little River, also known as the Little Shuswap River, is a river in the Shuswap Country region of British Columbia, Canada. It drains Shuswap Lake just below the mouth of the Adams River and feeds Little Shuswap Lake, which is the head of the South Thompson River...
to Shuswap Lake
Shuswap Lake
Shuswap Lake is a lake located in south-central British Columbia, Canada that drains via the Little River into Little Shuswap Lake. Little Shuswap Lake is the source of the South Thompson River, a branch of the Thompson River, a tributary of the Fraser River...
. The line generally follows the shore of Shuswap Lake except for a short cut through Notch Hill. Leaving the lake at Sicamous
Sicamous, British Columbia
Sicamous, British Columbia is a town in British Columbia located adjacent to the Trans-Canada Highway at the Highway 97A junction of Mara Lake and the Shuswap Lake system. It is known as a popular all season tourist destination attracting visitors from throughout Canada and around the world...
(in Onderdonk's day called Eagle Pass Landing), the line goes up the Eagle River
Eagle River
-Streams:In the United States:*Eagle River , any one of three rivers*Eagle River , a tributary of the Colorado River*Eagle River , a river flowing into Lake Superior*Eagle River , a tributary of the Wisconsin River...
towards Eagle Pass
Eagle Pass
Eagle Pass is a mountain pass through the Gold Range of the Monashee Mountains in British Columbia, Canada. It divides the Columbia River drainage basin from that of the Fraser River ....
. Navigable waters along this entire section of the route enabled supply of construction materials by Steamboats of the Thomspon and Shuswap. In the summer of 1885, Onderdonk's workers ran out of rail at a location that was later called Craigellachie
Craigellachie, British Columbia
Craigellachie is a locality in British Columbia, located several kilometres to the west of the Eagle Pass summit between Sicamous and Revelstoke...
. The railway construction from the east reached that point in November and the last spike was hammered home on November 7, 1885.
Other work
After his work for the Canadian Pacific Railway, he continued doing railway and canal contracts, mostly in eastern Canada and the United States. In 1895, Onderdonk obtained a contract from the Canadian government to build sections of the Trent-Severn WaterwayTrent-Severn Waterway
The Trent–Severn Waterway is a Canadian canal system formerly used for industrial and transportation purposes and now for recreational and tourism purposes, connecting Lake Ontario at Trenton to the Georgian Bay portion of Lake Huron at Port Severn...
in Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
.
Legacy
- Onderdonk Mountain in the northern Selkirk MountainsSelkirk MountainsThe Selkirk Mountains are a mountain range spanning the northern portion of the Idaho Panhandle, eastern Washington, and southeastern British Columbia. They begin at Mica Peak near Coeur d'Alene, Idaho and extend approximately 320 km north from the border. The range is bounded on its west,...
, located near the head of the Goldstream RiverGoldstream RiverThe Goldstream River is a tributary of the Columbia River, joining that stream via the Lake Revelstoke reservoir after running largely west from the heart of the northern Selkirk Mountains. The river's name derives from the Big Bend Gold Rush of 1865, during which it was the scene of busy...
, roughly between lower Revelstoke LakeRevelstoke LakeLake Revelstoke or Revelstoke Lake or Revelstoke Lake Reservoir is an artificial lake on the Columbia River, north of the town of Revelstoke, British Columbia and south of Mica Creek...
and the Wood ArmWood River (British Columbia)The Wood River is a tributary of the Columbia River in the Canadian province of British Columbia. The river's lower reach is flooded by Mica Dam on the Columbia River, until its inundation the river was formerly a tributary of the Canoe River. The lower Wood River is called Wood Reach, which is...
of Kinbasket LakeKinbasket LakeKinbasket Lake is a reservoir on the Columbia River in southeast British Columbia, north of the city of Revelstoke and the town of Golden. The reservoir was created by the construction of the Mica Dam. The lake includes two reaches, Columbia Reach and Canoe Reach , referring to the river valleys...
, is named in honour of Andrew Onderdonk. - Station name sign Onderdonk, Located at MP 107.5 (Pitt Meadows BC), Cascade Subdivision CPR.
See also
- Canadian Pacific RailwayCanadian Pacific RailwayThe Canadian Pacific Railway , formerly also known as CP Rail between 1968 and 1996, is a historic Canadian Class I railway founded in 1881 and now operated by Canadian Pacific Railway Limited, which began operations as legal owner in a corporate restructuring in 2001...
- Canadian Pacific SurveyCanadian Pacific SurveyThe Canadian Pacific Survey or Canadian Pacific Railway Survey consisted of a large number of distinct geographical surveys conducted during the 1870s and 1880s designed to determine the ideal route of the Canadian Pacific Railway...
- History of British ColumbiaHistory of British ColumbiaBritish Columbia is the westernmost province in Canada. Originally politically constituted as a pair of British colonies, British Columbia joined the Canadian Confederation on July 20, 1871.-Early history :...
- History of Chinese immigration to CanadaHistory of Chinese immigration to CanadaThis is the history of Chinese immigration to Canada.The first recorded visit by Chinese people to North America can be dated to 1788, with the employment of 30-50 Chinese shipwrights at Nootka Sound in what is now British Columbia, who built the first European-type vessel in the Pacific Northwest,...