Philander Anderson

Philander Anderson appears as the surveyor and draftsman of several published maps from the mid-nineteenth century. According to an article that appeared in the Hartford Courant on November 27, 1849, he was "superintending engineer of the great works [evidently the Holyoke Dam] at the New City" and had just been appointed "Chief Engineer of the railroad through the Ashuelot Valley." An obituary notice in the Courant on March 23, 1853 stated that he had been "one of the most able and accomplished engineers of the country" and said that he had been one of the principal engineers of the Western Railroad. He is listed in the 1840 and 1850 Federal Census, living in Springfield; he was apparently born in Vermont, about 1810.