Amasa Leland Stanford (March 9, 1824 â€" June 21, 1893) was an
American industrialist and politician. He is the founder (with his
wife, Jane) of Stanford University. Migrating to California from New
York at the time of the Gold Rush, he became a successful merchant and
wholesaler, and continued to build his business empire. He spent one
two-year term as Governor of California after his election in 1861,
and later eight years as a United States Senator. As president of
Central Pacific Railroad, beginning in 1861, and later Southern
Pacific, he had tremendous power in the region and a lasting impact on
California. He is widely considered a robber baron.Stanford was born
in 1824 in what was then Watervliet, New York (now the Town of
Colonie). He was one of eight children of Josiah and Elizabeth
Phillips Stanford. Among his siblings were New York State Senator
Charles Stanford (1819â€"1885) and Australian businessman and
spiritualist Thomas Welton Stanford (1832â€"1918). His immigrant
ancestor, Thomas Stanford, settled in Charlestown, Massachusetts, in
the 17th century. Later ancestors settled in the eastern Mohawk Valley
of central New York about 1720.Stanford's father was a farmer of some
means. Stanford was raised on family farms in the Lisha Kill and
Roessleville (after 1836) areas of Watervliet. The family home in
Roessleville was called Elm Grove. The Elm Grove home was razed in the
1940s. Stanford attended the common school until 1836 and was tutored
at home until 1839. He attended Clinton Liberal Institute, in Clinton,
New York, and studied law at Cazenovia Seminary in Cazenovia, New
York, in 1841â€"45. In 1845, he entered the law office of Wheaton,
Doolittle and Hadley in Albany. Leland Stanford Biography, NetWorth, Height, Age, Weight, Family, Married, Son, Daughter