Letters of American railroad engineer Joel B. Clough during the American Civil War.

Joel Barber Clough (1823-1887) was an American railroad engineer. Joel Clough (his middle name is sometimes spelled Barbour) was born in October 1823, in Palmer, Massachusetts. In December 1848, following his graduation from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, he entered railway service as a rodman of the engineering party of the Mobile & Ohio Railroad. Between 1849 and 1856, he was employed at the Vermont Valley, Cleveland, Columbus & Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Painesville & Ashtabula railroads. In 1854, he moved to Macon, Mississippi, and then worked in Alabama and Tennessee for Edgefield & Kentucky and Nashville & Henderson Railroads. The beginning of the Civil War found him farming at Hopkins Station, near Minneapolis, Minnesota. According to the family record, he and his family left on the last available riverboat up the Mississippi before the outbreak of the war. In March of 1863, he became construction engineer of the Military Railroads of Virginia, a semi-independent unit that reported to the Secretary of War. Clough served under his old friend Adna Anderson (1827-1889), formerly chief engineer of Edgefield & Kentucky Railroad. Clough supervised construction works in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, on Aquia Creek, Potomac Creek Bridge, Bristoe Station, Cumberland Valley Railroad at Chambersburg, and Rappahannock Bridge. After the war, he worked for various Western railroads, including the Northern Pacific, and served as Minneapolis's City Engineer, from 1869 to 1870 and 1874 to 1875. From 1881 to 1887, Clough served, again under the supervision of Adna Anderson, as division engineer for the Northern Pacific Railroad, Yellowstone and Wisconsin Divisions. In 1887 he was employed as division engineer for Boulder Valley & Butte Railroad, Helena & Western, Helena, Boulder & Madison, and Helena Gallatin National Park Railroad. He died in August 1887 of pneumonia in Helena, Montana. Clough Junction, east of Helena is named after him. In 1854, he married Mary Anne Pierce. The couple had four children: Frank Pierce Clough, Mary Estella Clough, Ernest John Child Clough, and Florence Augusta Clough.

3.2 Linear Feet (2 boxes, 1 oversize folder)

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