BIO: James WORRALL, Dauphin County, PA

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Commemorative Biographical Encyclopedia of Dauphin County, 
Containing Sketches of Representative Citizens, and Many of the 
Early Scotch-Irish and German Settlers.  Chambersburg, Pa.: 
J. M. Runk & Company, 1896, pages 166-167.
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  WORRALL, JAMES, is a native of Limerick, Ireland, the son of John 
Worrall, of that city, merchant, who failed in business in consequence 
of some decree of the first Napoleon.  He had cargoes of provisions on 
the ocean, and when the continental ports were closed against them they 
had to be sacrificed or rot in the ships, a fate which bankrupted their 
owner.  He then emigrated to this country and being a man of education 
he began teaching, in which occupation he successfully continued until 
his death, at Philadelphia, in 1845.  He left a large family, of whom 
James was the eldest.  The latter entered the establishment of Carey, 
Lea & Co., booksellers, where he remained several years, when he 
secured a position on an engineer corps under Judge F. W. Rawle.  The 
first rod Mr. Worrall ever held was on a railroad in Northumberland 
county in 1831, and strange to say, the road was only commenced to be 
built in 1882, more than half a century later than its preliminary 
survey.  He continued with Judge Rawle into 1832.  In 1833, under Judge 
Benjamin Wright, one of the engineers of the Erie Canal; he assisted in 
making the surveys and maps of the great St. Lawrence canal, between 
Prescott and Cornwall.  He then joined the engineer corps on the 
Chesapeake and Ohio canal, where he remained two years.  In the fall of 
1835 he helped Colonel Schlatter on a survey across New Jersey for a 
railroad from Trenton to New Brunswick, which, through the opposition 
of the Camden and Amboy railroad, was never built.  Mr. Worrall then 
took service on the James river and Kanawha canal, under Judge Wright, 
consulting engineer, and Charles Ellet, Jr., construction engineer.  He 
was subsequently called back to Pennsylvania by Hother Hage to make a 
survey over the Alleghany mountains on a line from the Cumberland 
Valley to Pittsburgh.  He was given the division from Bedford across 
the mountains as far as the Laurel Hill, a reconnoissance from thence 
to Greensburg, and again a survey from the latter point to the 
Youghiougheny at the mouth of the Sewickly.  This was in 1838, and here 
Mr. Worrall first showed his skill and judgement, but the fact of their 
existence was not to be discovered until some forty-five years 
afterwards, when the highest engineering ability of the year 1882 was 
called upon for an opinion on the location then made; they unanimously 
pronounced it the true location for the road, the South Pennsylvania, 
and adopted it without hesitation. There was some difficult engineering 
suggested by Colonel Worrall east of Bedford upon which the syndicate 
of engineers was called upon to pronounce, which also they unanimously  
approved.  It is questionable whether it would not have been hard to 
find, in the early history of engineering, an engineer, who, locating a 
road upon a single examination, so marked it as that the improved 
science of forty  years later adopted it as the best without 
hesitation.  He was afterwards engaged with Milnor Roberts as principal 
assistant engineer in the Erie extension of the Pennsylvania canal; in 
1844 he became interested with others in canal and railroad contracts 
in the United States and Canada.  In 1850 he was chief engineer of the 
Union canal, where he continued until the completion of its 
enlargement, when he became principal engineer on the western division 
of the Philadelphia and Erie railroad.  Upon the completion of this 
work he returned to Harrisburg.  After the year 1861 he acted as clerk 
in the quartermaster's department during the war.  At the close of the 
Rebellion he was again engineering across the State for projected 
routes to the West; afterwards on a canal survey in Illinois, returning 
to Pennsylvania in 1869, since which period he has been prominently 
identified with the fishery commission of the State, and to him much 
that has been accomplished in that direction is due.