Generation
Letter. July 19th 1941. (Replying for a request for further information)
"In 1935 I got a position in the Engineer Department in Washington.
In 1936, I was loaned to W.P.A., with headquarters in Philadelphia. I served as a Regional Engineer, covering New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and West Virginia, until March 1st, 1939, when I was forced to give up my position on account of failing eyesight. The work was both interesting and profitable.
In 1938 I had four operations performed on my eyes which re- sulted in the entire loss of sight in one eye then in a cataract over the other. I am almost totally blind and have been for two years."
This is a sad end for a man who had accomplished so many things for the advancement along many lines vital to posterity.
Colonel Maltby lost his wife, who was greatly beloved--a com- panion and help-meet--on May 19, 1940. He sold his home in Morris- town, Pa., and went to live with his daughter, Ruth, at Denver, Colo- rado.
Here, he began writing a sort of memoir, entitled "The Wander- ings of an Engineer." It is the story of his professional life-- from Wyoming to East Africa; from New Brunswick, Canada, to Peru, South America. The work has been brought up to the first World War, with 72,000 words. "It consists of personal experiences and incidents of my professional life which has covered a wide field of experience and location than falls to the lot of most engineers."
This was Colonel Maltby's last letter.
Frank Bierce Maltby graduated at the University of Illinois, 1882, and was given an honorary Degree, 1907. Since leaving school he followed the Engineering profession and was connected with rail- road construction and work under the Government on the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers from 1902-1905, was in charge of all dredging operations on the Mississippi river below Cairo and had under his direction the largest dredge plant in the world.
In 1905 he went to Panama as a dredging expert in charge of all dredging operations and was afterwards made Division Engineer and then Principal Assistant Engineer, under Mr. Jno. F. Stevens, Chief Engineer of the Isthmian Canal Commission after the Canal construc- tion was turned over to the Army Engineers. He resigned and was Chief Engineer of the firm of Dodge and Day, of Philadelphia.
While in the service of the Canal Commission he designed and built the dredges now in use in constructing the Canal, this plant has cost about 1 1/2 million dollars. His work also included the construction of wharves and docks and beginning the construction of the great Gatunlock and dam. He built also a cold storage plant, Laundry and bakery on the Isthmas. Mr. Maltby wrote in 1908:-- "If I have any reputation it is that of a hydraulic Engineer and ex- pert on all classes of dredging operations.
Our Company now have the contract for the erection of the largest cableway plant in the world for handling material at Gattun on the Isthmus."
Mr. Maltby left Dodge and Day of Philadelphia, about June 1, 1910, and became associated with James Stewart and Co., of New York-- General Contractors. At that time they had a large contract on the New York State Barge Canal which Mr. Maltby was looking after in a general way, as well as work in Buffalo and Lorain, Ohio.
(Italics underlined are by the compiler.)
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