The Canadian Portrait Gallery - Volume 3 (of 4)Dent, John Charles
History
The Canadian Portrait Gallery - Volume 3 (of 4)
Dent, John Charles
Canada -- Biography
For many years past Colonel Gzowski has been the possessor of large
means, acquired by his own industry and talents, and sufficient to
enable him to indulge in a dignified repose for the remainder of his
life. He is, however, possessed of a stirring nervousness of temperament
which impels him to action, and has never ceased to engage in
engineering projects of greater or less magnitude. This sketch would be
very incomplete without some reference to an enterprise which is
entitled to rank among the grandest public works of the Dominion; viz.,
the International Bridge over the Niagara River at Buffalo. The charters
for the construction of this great enterprise were granted by the
Legislature of Canada and the State of New York as far back as the year
1857, but were permitted to lie dormant owing to the difficulty of
obtaining the funds necessary to carrying out so gigantic a project. The
capital was at last raised in England in 1870, and the contract was let
to Colonel Gzowski and his partner, the Hon. D. L. Macpherson, who
forthwith began the work of construction. The engineering difficulties
to be encountered were very great, and at certain seasons of the year
the work had to be totally suspended. The bridge was finally completed
and opened for the passage of trains on the 3rd of November, 1873, and
the entire cost of construction was about $1,500,000. It stands as a
perpetual memorial of the great skill and enterprise of the contractors.
After its completion Colonel Gzowski wrote and published a full account
of the enterprise from its inception, accompanied by elaborate plans and
illustrations. Sir Charles Hartley, in a work published in England in
1875, bears testimony to the fact that "the chief credit in overcoming
the extraordinary difficulties which beset the building of the piers of
this bridge is due to Colonel Gzowski, upon whom all the practical
operations devolved." A still higher testimony comes from Mr. Thomas
Elliott Harrison, President of the (British) Institute of Civil
Engineers, who, in an annual address read before the Institute on his
election to the Presidency in the session of 1873-4, referred to the
International Bridge as one of the most gigantic engineering works on
the American continent, and made a special reference to the difficulties
met with in subaqueous foundations, as described in Colonel Gzowski's
volume.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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