Andrew Smith Hallidie - Early Life

Early Life

Andrew Smith Hallidie was born as plain Andrew Smith. His birthplace is variously quoted as London in England. His grandfather, Smith, a Scottish schoolmaster and soldier during the Napoleonic wars, had served at Waterloo. His father, Andrew Smith, had been born in Fleming, Dumfrieshire, Scotland, in 1798, and his mother, Julia Johnstone Smith, was from Lockerbie, Dumfrieshire. He later adopted the name Hallidie in honor of his uncle, Sir Andrew Hallidie, who had been a royal physician to King William IV and to Queen Victoria.

Andrew Smith's father, also called Andrew Smith, was an engineer and inventor with several patents to his name, most importantly those for the making of wire ropes, granted from 1835 to 1849. The younger Andrew Smith was initially apprenticed to a machine shop and drawing office. In 1852 both father and son set sail for California, where the father had an interest in some gold mines in Mariposa County. These proved disappointing, and the father returned to England in 1853. The son, however, remained in California, and became a gold miner whilst also working as a blacksmith, surveyor and builder of bridges.

In 1856, whilst working on the construction of a flume at a mine at American Bar, Hallidie was consulted over the rapid rate of wear on the ropes used to lower cars of rock from the mine to the mill. These ropes were wearing out in 75 days. Hallidie improvised machinery to make a replacement wire rope, which lasted two years, and in the process began wire rope manufacture in California.