From twenty thousand dozen shovels turned out in 1845, their output increased to one hundred and twenty-five thousand dozens in 1870. A tireless worker dispensing with clerk or bookkeeper, his accounts were kept in his head. Over six feet in height, weighing over two hundred pounds, broad shouldered and massive in built. Elected to Congress in 1860 where he was kept until 1872. Becoming associated with the Union Pacific in 1865, at the time when the enterprise was languishing for lack of funds and it seemed almost hopeless. His attention was first directed in that channel by his duties as a member of the House Committee of Railroads in 1865. He was then a man of considerable means, recognized as an authority on business matters, and he enjoyed the confidence of President Lincoln and other prominent men of that day to a marked degree. In fact, it was at the urgent solicitation of the President that he undertook the almost hopeless task of financiering the construction of the road. Entering into the undertaking with all of his energy and means, using his influence and persuasive powers with his fellow capitalists, he was able to raise by various means, the necessary funds for the construction of the line. Among others who took stock in the Company and Credit Mobilier were a number of public men, including Vice-President Colfax, Speaker James G. Blaine, James A. Garfield, afterwards President, and others of that ilk. The cry of corruption and bribery was raised in the campaign of 1872, resulting in investigation by Congressional Committees and a trial by the House, which rendered a very remarkable verdict, censuring Mr. Ames for having induced members of Congress to invest in the stock of a corporation in which he was interested and whose interests depended on legislation of Congress--but with the further finding on the part of the House Committee that no one had been wronged--that the Congressmen in question had paid him what the stock cost him and no more--that he had neither offered nor suggested a bribe--that their object in taking the stock originally was a profitable investment, and at the time no further action at the hands of Congress was desired. Leaving Congress at the end of ten years' service, in 1872; he died from the effects of pneumonia during May, 1873, universally respected and esteemed, and the one man above all others who by financiering the proposition, was entitled to a monument at the hands of the stockholders of the Union Pacific Railroad. The following remarks made by him in regard to the road, at a time of apparently hopeless financial stringency, indicate quite clearly the character of the man and his views of the work: