Joe Vincent Meigs papers

Josiah (Joe) Vincent Meigs was born on June 7, 1840, one of five sons of Return Jonathan and Eugenia (Love) Meigs. Joe Meigs spent his childhood in Nashville, Tennessee, where his father was a prominent jurist.

In 1858 R. J. Meigs apprenticed Joe to his brother James, an engineer for the Memphis and Charlestown railroad. When war broke out, Joe left Memphis and returned to Nashville. His father's strong unionist feelings forced the family to flee Tennessee in 1861. After a few years in New York, Joe Meigs went to Washington, D.C., where his father was clerk for the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, and got a position as clerk in the office of the Secretary of War. After a year in this post, Meigs joined the Union forces, and with the help of influential connections made through his father, he was able to raise the first black light artillery battalion. Despite his success with the battalion, he was forced to resign his commission due to injuries.

A job in the court of claims in Washington provided minimal financial support for Meigs while he worked at his true vocation: invention. General Benjamin Butler became interested in Meigs' talents as an inventor, especially in gun and cartridge design. In 1866 the Meigs family moved to Lowell, Massachusetts, under Butler's patronage, and Meigs became manager of the U.S. Cartridge Co.

Meigs' interest in traction problems, first contemplated when he was a boy and fine tuned while at work as a young man on the Memphis and Charlestown Railroad, led to the development of a monorail railway system which Meigs felt would revolutionize rapid transit. With General Butler's financial backing, Meigs and others began in 1881 the difficult task of seeking permission to build an elevated railway in Boston. Opposition by street car lobbyists kept a charter from being granted until 1884. In order to encourage capital investment and to fulfill one of the terms of the 1884 charter, the Meigs Elevated Railway Construction Company was founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts. By 1885-1886, one-third mile of track had been laid and an engine, tender, and car were operational.

By 1887 the elevated railway was both an engineering and a popular success. Lack of financial support, however, and continued opposition from street railways interests plagued Meigs and his enterprise.

Years of legal battles resulted in approval for the Meigs-Subway bill in 1894. Unfortunately Meigs' refusal to accept electricity as the chief source of motive power for the railway lost him financial support. By 1896 Meigs sold his charter rights to the elevated railway line.

In the last years of his life, Meigs immersed himself in gathering genealogical information on the Meigs family. In failing health from his Civil War injuries, Meigs died from a stroke on November 14, 1907, in Charlestown, Massachusetts.

[Biographical information extracted from a prospectus by Tawny Ryan Nelb.]