Weber-Salt Lake County UT Archives Biographies.....West, Joseph Alva 1851 - 
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 September 2, 2011, 2:06 pm

Source: See below
Author: S. J. Clarke, Publisher

HON. JOSEPH ALVA WEST.

    Upon the material development, the political history and moral; progress of
Utah, Joseph Alva West has left the impress of his individuality in an
unmistakable manner. His labors have been of far-reaching extent and benefit and
his activities have been a potent force in the upbuilding of the state. He has
been active in the construction of railroads in the west, being a civil engineer
by profession, and at the same time has taken helpful interest in molding the
political, moral and industrial activity of the commonwealth and in promoting
the interest of the dominant church in Utah. He was the second son of Bishop
Chauncey W. West, whose biography precedes this one, and was born in Salt Lake
City, September 12, 1851. He is a representative of one of the honored Utah
pioneer families, the ancestry of which Is traced back in a direct line to
Francis West, who was his emigrant ancestor and who settled in Duxbury,
Massachusetts, In the year 1620.

    This Francis West was the fourth son of Sir Thomas West, whose titled name
was Lord De La Ware, which means "the lord of the war." His sixth
great-grandfather, also named Thomas, was a valiant soldier who took part in the
wars of Edward III, king of England, in France and was with him at the memorable
battle of Cressy, August 26, 1346. This nobleman won the favor of the king by
personally assisting in the rescue of the king's son, the Black Prince, from a
perilous position. He (Francis West) was born on the 28th of October, 1586, at
Wherwell, England, and on the 27th of February, 1639, married Margerie Reeves.
His son (II) Samuel married Triephesa Tracy Partgidge and had (III) Francis, who
married Mercy Minor and had (IV) Peltiah, who married Elizabeth Lathrop and had
(V) Daniel, who married Elizabeth Tracy and had (VI) Alva, who married Sally
Benedict and had (VII) Chauncey Walker, who married Mary Hoagland and had (VIII)
Joseph Alva, the subject of this sketch, and who is of the eighth generation in
America.

    As previously stated, Joseph Alva West was born in Salt Lake City, September
12, 1851. He was reared in Ogden, where he acquired a common school education,
and later became a student in the Deseret University at Salt Lake City. In the
winter of 1865, in common with a number of other young men, he was called to go
to Salt Lake City by President Brigham Young and learn telegraphy, preparatory
to serving on the Deseret Telegraph Line then projected between Paris, Idaho,
and St. George, Utah. On the 1st of December, 1866, Mr. West received President
Young's opening congratulatory message, directed to His father, in the first
office on this line outside of Salt Lake. He was soon afterward placed in charge
of the Prove office, where he remained until released to return home. In the
meantime the Western Union Telegraph Company extended its lines across the
continent and into Idaho and Montana, and with Mr. West's return to Ogden, he
was made telegraph operator for the two companies in that city.

  In the early days he was also prominent in military affairs and served as
aid-de-camp on his father's staff and on the 20th of February, 1868, was
commissioned by Governor Durkee regimental adjutant in the first regiment, first
brigade, of the territorial militia. Promotion to the rank of major of cavalry
came in 1870 and he was detailed to form a battalion of volunteer cavalry from
among the young men of the Weber Military District, to be known as the Weber
County Volunteers. He soon organized five companies consisting in all of two
hundred and fifty men. These were soon completely uniformed and later became
very proficient in military tactics under the command of Major West. In those
early days the militia played no inconspicuous part, as it was the people's
defense against Indians and outlaws. Early in 1867 Joseph A. West, at the
request of President Young, was sent by his father to Salt Lake City to learn
surveying and became a student in the office of the territorial
surveyor-general, Jesse W. Fox. In the fall of 1868, when but eighteen years of
age, he was made deputy territorial surveyor in recognition of the ability which
he had developed. Subsequently he was elected city surveyor of Ogden and county
surveyor of Weber county and this constituted an initial step to his great
activity as a railroad builder. He was one of the engineers in charge of the
building of the Utah Central between Ogden and Salt Lake City in 1872 and 1873
and was assistant chief engineer of the Utah & Northern, or Oregpn Short Line,
in its extension from Ogden north, making several preliminary surveys into Idaho
through the then comparatively unknown regions. Since then he has been chief
engineer for projected lines of railways all over the west, many of which have
been built. As early as 1880 he made extensive surveys between Salt Lake City
and California, through central Nevada, and the Deseret Evening News of February
25, 1881, said: "Joseph A. West is said to be one of the best field engineers in
the west. We are informed by a prominent railway man yesterday that he
accomplished the unusual feat of surveying for the Salt Lake & Western over a
distance of three hundred and fifty miles of desert last year." In 1888 he had
charge of the Union Pacific surveys in California and Nevada, the purpose of
which was to find the most direct arid feasible route for a railway between Salt
Lake City and Los Angeles by way of southern Utah and southeastern Nevada. He
surveyed three lines through Death valley and encountered many hardships while
thus engaged. In 1889 Mr. West entered the employ of David Eccles and went to
Oregon, where he took up the work of constructing the Sumpter Valley Railway as
chief engineer. Later he became its general freight and passenger agent and
afterward was made superintendent of the road. He was also one of its original
incorporators and has been its secretary from that time to the present. In 1900
he built for Mr. Eccles and A. W. McCune one hundred miles of what is now known
as the Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railroad, extending from Milford, Utah, to Uvada,
the state line, and following the completion of construction work he also became
superintendent of that road. About 1915 he was made chief engineer of the Ogden
Rapid Transit Railway Company and had charge of the construction of the
Huntsville branch and also the branch line to Brigham. Later, when it was
decided to extend this line into Cache Valley, Mr. West made the preliminary
surveys for the road, which is now known as the Utah-Idaho Central, and the road
was built substantially along the line of his survey. It follows the old Utah &
Northern grade across the Cache Valley divide, this having been surveyed by
James H. Martineau and Joseph A. West In 1872.

    Active and prominent as he has been as a railroad builder, Mr. West has also
extended his efforts into other lines. On the 1st of November, 1878, he
organized the Junction Printing Association, of which he became president and
business manager, and purchased the Ogden Junction, which he greatly enlarged,
changing it from an evening to a morning paper. He also published a semi-weekly
edition and the following year began the publication of a paper at Logan called
the Logan Leader, which subsequently was sold to Benjamin P. Cummings.

   Notwithstanding Mr. West's great activity as a railroad builder, he has at
the same time been an earnest worker and devout member of the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints. On the 17th of February, 1865, he was ordained an
elder and on the 20th of March, 1869, was made a member of the Seventy and was
set apart as one of the seven presidents of the Seventy-fifth Quorum of Seventy.
On the 21st of October, 1877, he was ordained a high priest and set apart as a
high councilor in the Weber stake, which position he filled for five years. When
the young men of Ogden organized a semi-religious and literary society in the
early '70s he was elected president and when the Mutual Improvement Associations
were formed a few years later he was appointed stake superintendent. He became,
the editor of The Amateur, which was published about .that time and which was
enlarged to a four-page publication. This publication was printed for a period
of two years and later was published in book form and appeared in two volumes.
It was suspended to make way for the Contributor, now the Era, the official
organ of the Young Men's Mutual Improvement Associations of the Mormon Church,
similar in character to the Y. M. C. A. On the 11th of April, 1882, Mr. West was
called to a mission in England and was chosen to preside over a large company of
elders. He arrived in Liverpool on the 29th of that month and was assigned to
the London conference, of which he was appointed president in the following
June, thus continuing until his return home. While abroad he traveled
extensively over the British Isles and to a considerable extent over continental
Europe, including a visit to Rome, Naples, Herculaneum and Pompeii, and he also
ascended Mount Vesuvius.

    The winter following his return he was called upon for important political
service, being appointed minute clerk in the Utah house of representatives and
selected by that body to prepare an official map of Utah. He was made a member
of the directorate of the Territorial Insane Asylum, in which position he served
for several years or until after the completion of the building in 1885. The
same year he was nominated and elected to the legislature from Weber county and
during much of the following session he occupied the speaker's chair. He was
connected with much important legislation, being made chairman of the committee
on memorials to congress and of the committee on the governor's absolute vetoes,
which were frequent and excesslvely annoying, as the governor was strongly
anti-Mormon In spirit. These vetoes included nearly every enactment of the
session, including the general appropriation bill, carrying with it the pay and
expenses of every department of the local government, as well as the
appropriations for the several territorial institutions, such as the Insane
Asylum and Deseret University. At the close of the session Mr. West was selected
to go to Washington and assist in presenting the legislature's side of the
controversy with Governor Murray to the federal government. Accordingly he made
his way to Washington, where he called upon the president and cabinet members
and so presented the situation that the governor was recalled and Governor Caleb
West of Kentucky was named as successor. It was during his administration that
Utah was admitted to statehood. Under the federal anti-polygamy legislation,
known as the Poland bill, Mormons were almost entirely excluded from the jury
both in criminal and civil cases and criminal jurisdiction was transferred from
the territorial to federal courts. The expenses of this litigation were greatly
increased and, while properly chargeable to the United States government,
Governor Murray insisted upon a large portion being paid from the territorial
treasury. Because the legislature would not accede to his demands in this
respect he vetoed most of the legislation of the session and succeeded in
getting the treasury department at Washington to withhold the legislative pay.
Through Mr. West's efforts congress reenacted all of the most important measures
that had thus been nullified, Including the general appropriation bill, and the
treasury department was prevailed upon to pay the legislative expenses. Anyone
meeting Joseph A. West face to face would know at once that he is an individual
embodying the elements of what in this country we term a "square" man-one in
whom to have confidence, a dependable man in any relation and any emergency. His
quietude of deportment, his easy dignity, his frankness and cordiality of
address, with a total absence of anything sinister or anything to conceal,
foretoken a man who is ready to meet any obligation of life with the confidence
and courage that come of conscious personal ability, right conception, of things
and an habitual regard for what is best in the excercise of human activities.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

UTAH SINCE STATEHOOD
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL

ILLUSTRATED
VOLUME IV
CHICAGO-SALT LAKE: THE S. J. CLARKE PUBLISHING COMPANY
1920


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