James Frederick Joy was an American railroad magnate and politician in Detroit, Michigan

Detroit, Michigan

Detroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River...

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Beginnings

He was born in Durham, New Hampshire

Durham, New Hampshire

As of the census of 2000, there were 12,664 people, 2,882 households, and 1,582 families residing in the town. The population density was 565.5 people per square mile . There were 2,923 housing units at an average density of 130.5 per square mile...

, the son of James Joy (1778-1857) of Groton, Massachusetts and Sarah Gee Pickering (1781-1858), daughter of John Pickering,

Education and early career

Educated in Durham, New Hampshire

Durham, New Hampshire

As of the census of 2000, there were 12,664 people, 2,882 households, and 1,582 families residing in the town. The population density was 565.5 people per square mile . There were 2,923 housing units at an average density of 130.5 per square mile...

, he entered Dartmouth College

Dartmouth College

Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...

, graduating in 1833. From Dartmouth he entered Harvard Law School

Harvard Law School

Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...

, from which he graduated in 1836. That year he moved to Detroit and formed a law firm with George F. Porter.

Railroad magnate

In 1846 he entered the railroad business as the lawyer and general counsel to the Michigan Central Railroad

Michigan Central Railroad

The Michigan Central Railroad was originally incorporated in 1846 to establish rail service between Detroit, Michigan and St. Joseph, Michigan. The railroad later operated in the states of Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois in the United States, and the province of Ontario in Canada...

. He was subsequently connected with the Illinois Central Railroad

Illinois Central Railroad

The Illinois Central Railroad , sometimes called the Main Line of Mid-America, is a railroad in the central United States, with its primary routes connecting Chicago, Illinois with New Orleans, Louisiana and Birmingham, Alabama. A line also connected Chicago with Sioux City, Iowa...

. Joy organized the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy railroads, and was for many years its president. Joy was for several years president of the Wabash, St. Louis and Pacific Railway.

In 1872 he was president and a director of the Michigan Central Railroad

Michigan Central Railroad

The Michigan Central Railroad was originally incorporated in 1846 to establish rail service between Detroit, Michigan and St. Joseph, Michigan. The railroad later operated in the states of Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois in the United States, and the province of Ontario in Canada...

, drawing a salary of $8,000 per year. He was at the same time president and a director of the Chicago and Michigan Lake Shore Railroad

Chicago and Michigan Lake Shore Railroad

The Chicago and Michigan Lake Shore Railroad is a defunct railroad which operated in Michigan between 1869 and 1878, and as the Chicago and West Michigan Railroad until 1881....

, and a director of the Detroit, Hillsdale and Indiana Railroad.

In 1873 he became president and a director of the Detroit, Lansing and Lake Michigan Railroad, taking over from H.H. Smith. He became president and treasurer of the Detroit Union Railway Depot and Station company at Detroit, Michigan

Michigan

Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

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Politics

Joy was intimately involved with politics from his early career. A member of the Whig Party (United States)

Whig Party (United States)

The Whig Party was a political party of the United States during the era of Jacksonian democracy. Considered integral to the Second Party System and operating from the early 1830s to the mid-1850s, the party was formed in opposition to the policies of President Andrew Jackson and his Democratic...

 and subsequently a Republican

Republican Party (United States)

The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

, for a time he had also been a member of the Free Soil Party

Free Soil Party

The Free Soil Party was a short-lived political party in the United States active in the 1848 and 1852 presidential elections, and in some state elections. It was a third party and a single-issue party that largely appealed to and drew its greatest strength from New York State. The party leadership...

. He was a close friend, confidant and supporter of Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...

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