John H. Cadden

JOHN H. CADDEN. - Conspicuous among the active, clear-headed and capable men who have been associated with the railway service of the great West is John H. Cadden, who resigned his responsible position as an engineer on the Union Pacific Railroad in September, 1910, and is now living retired in Kansas City, Kansas. A son of Owen Cadden, he was born June 4, 1859, in Susquehanna county, Pennsylvania, coming from thrifty Irish ancestry, his grandparents on both sides of the house having been born in America, but were descendants of Irish ancestry.

Owen Cadden was born and brought up in New York state. He subsequently moved to Pennsylvania, and was there variously employed, following the profession of a veterinary surgeon, also being a butcher, and later a building contractor. During the Civil war he served as a soldier in a Pennsylvania regiment. Returning to that state at the close of the war, he remained there a resident until his death, in 1905. He married, in New York state, Mary Farley, who died in Pennsylvania in 1904. Eight children were born of their union, as follows: Joseph P., of Beloit, Kansas; Lucy, wife of Thomas McGee, of Susquehanna county, Pennsylvania; Eugene, who died at about thirty-five years of age; James, residing in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania; John H., the special subject of this brief personal sketch; Thomas, of Susquehanna county, Pennsylvania; Michael, of Scranton, Pennsylvania; and Elizabeth, wife of M. McAvoy, of Susquehanna county, Pennsylvania.

As a lad of ten years John H. Cadden began life as a wage-earner, and for eleven years worked as a farm laborer. On attaining his majority he came to Kansas City, Kansas, in search of remunerative employment. In 1882 he entered the employ of the Union Pacific Railroad Company as an assistant in the round house, and in 1885 became an engineer, for a year having charge of a switch engine. Mr. Cadden was subsequently engineer on a freight train for twenty years, afterward holding a similar position on a passenger train until his retirement from the railway service in the fall of 1910, as above stated. In 1884 Mr. Cadden made a record run on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, covering the sixty-seven miles between Topeka and Kansas City, Missouri, in one hour and twenty minutes, with thirty-seven cars of stock. During the Columbian Exposition at Chicago, in 1893, Mr. Cadden was one of the men selected to run and handle the seventeen-car World's Fair train on its trip around the world, and he took the train, which was controlled by air brakes, one hundred and forty miles, handling it most skillfully. When the Philadelphia millionaires made the trip to the California Convention, on their return Mr. Cadden hauled them from Junction City, Kansas, to Kansas City, making eleven stops, in two hours and twenty-five minutes. He has the credit of being one of the best experts in the United States as an engineer.

Mr. Cadden married, January 20, 1891, Mary Hedderman, who was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, a daughter of John and Jane Hedderman, and they are the parents of two daughters, Delaphine and Mary Pearl. Politically Mr. Cadden is an independent Democrat. Religiously he is a member of Saint Mary's Catholic church, and one of its active workers. Fraternally he belongs to Lodge No. 440, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, Kansas City, Kansas; and to Division No. 81, Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers.