Timothy Hackworth

(1786-1850)

Hackworth was the designer and builder of Samson, the first locomotive to arrive in Nova Scotia for use on the Albion Rail Road in May of 1839. Hackworth never got the kind of praise that was heaped upon George Stephenson, for whom he worked until 1824. He is credited with the coupling of wheels by side rods, and in 1827 he built the first six-coupled locomotive for the Stockton and Darlington railway. In 1829 he was Stephenson's closest rival at the famous Rainhill Trials. Samson was built in a style typical of Hackworth's earlier locomotives Royal George and Sans Pareil, having outside vertical cylinders and return-flue boilers, with chimney and fire door at the same end.

David Blythe Hanna

(1858-1940)

Born in Scotland, Hanna began his railway career as a clerk with the Grand Trunk Railway. He joined Mackenzie and Mann’s Canadian Northern (CNoR) in 1896 as General Superintendent and oversaw the rapid expansion of the line from a small local railway to a transcontinental. He became CNoR’s president in 1917. The CNoR, owned two Nova Scotia lines, the Halifax & Southwestern, and the Inverness & Richmond. On 20 December 1918, his title was revised to President of Lines operated as the Canadian National Railways System.

Hanna oversaw the extremely difficult task of cobbling together the rag-tag assortment of insolvent railways—including the former CNoR, the Canadian Government Railways and the Grand Trunk—into a viable business enterprise. Constantly lacking funds, Hanna concentrated on freight operations. Constantly walking a "political tightrope", Hanna’s fate was sealed. He chose to resign effective 10 October 1922, due to what he considered political interference with the new railway.

Sir John Harvey

(1778-1852)

The Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia (1846-1852) he was an enthusiastic supporter of the proposal to build an inter-colonial railway, and took an active interest in the survey work of Major William Robinson. When the colonies could not agree on financing for the grand railway, Harvey openly backed Joseph Howe’s scheme to build a provincial railway financed by public money.

Edmund W. Henderson

(1821-1896)

The principal assistant to Capt. John Hodges Pipon, then Major William Robinson - the officers of the Royal Engineers working on the original 1846 survey of the Intercolonial Railway - Lieutenant Edmund Henderson gathered much of the statistical data contained in the report.

He married a Nova Scotia girl, moving to Australia in 1849 to oversee the establishment of the Fremantle prison (http://www.fremantleprison.com.au/). In England in 1869 he helped create the police agency that would become world famous as Scotland Yard.

Courtesy Battye
Library 3832B