It is not so much as the successful manufacturer, however, that Oakes
Ames will be remembered, as the master mind through whose perseverance
and indomitable energy, and in the face of seemingly insurmountable
obstacles, was forced to completion the pioneer railway across the
Western Continent. He gained a deserved and enduring fame as the builder
of the Union Pacific Railroad, and that magnificent work will ever stand
as his proudest monument. During the former part of the war of the
Rebellion he rendered important service to the Union cause by his shrewd
and sagacious counsels in State affairs, and a little later for ten
years represented the Second Massachusetts District in the National
House of Representatives. He died May 8, 1873.

Honorable Oliver Ames, second son of Oakes and Eveline O. (Gilmore)
Ames, was born in North Easton, February 4, 1831. [See genealogical foot
note]. He received his early education in the public schools of his
native town and at the North Attleboro, Leicester, and Easton Academies.
Having thus laid the foundation of a liberal education, he entered the
shovel works of his father, where he served an apprenticeship of five
years, thus mastering the business in all the minuteness of its details.
At the age of twenty, appreciating the value of a more thorough
scholastic training, he took a special course at Brown University,
placing himself under the special tutelage of President Francis Wayland.
The bent of his mind in this, his early manhood, is perhaps best seen
from his favorite branches of study, which were history, geology, and
political economy. Having finished his collegiate studies, he returned
to North Easton where he soon demonstrated that he was possessed of the
same splendid business qualities by which his father and grandfather had
fought their way to success. His natural love of mechanical employments,
which is a marked family trait, soon displayed itself in several
inventions; and his inventive genius, coupled with his perfect knowledge
of the business, has brought about important changes and improvements in
the business of the firm. During this time he served honorably in the
State militia, rising from the rank of Lieutenant to Lieutenant Colonel.
In 1863 he was admitted a member of the firm of Oliver Ames and Sons,
and for several years personally superintended the various departments
of the firm's immense establishment at North Easton. At his father's
death in 1873 the num