William Barclay Parsons was born in New York City, New York, on April 15, 1859, the son of William Barclay and Elizabeth Glass (Livingston) Parsons. In 1871, Parsons went to school in Torquay, Devonshire, England and during the following four years, studied under private tutors while traveling in France, Germany, and Italy. He returned to the United States in 1875 and entered Columbia College, from which he graduated in 1879 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. He continued his studies at the Columbia School of Mines until 1882, when he received the degree of Civil Engineer.
After receiving his degree, Parsons joined the engineering staff of the Erie Railroad Company and by 1885, had reached the rank of Division Engineer. He then commenced practice as a consulting engineer in New York City in association with his brother, H. de Berkeley Parsons (M. ASCE). He maintained this office for 20 years. Between 1885 and 1891, Parsons acted as a consultant on projects that banking houses were called upon to finance or which they had to take over to complete. During this time, he also served as Chief Engineer for the waterworks of several communities, including Vicksburg and Natchez, Mississippi, and as Chief Engineer or Consultant on railway lines in the west and in Jamaica, British West Indies.
In 1891, the New York State Legislature authorized a commission to take measures toward the construction of the long-proposed subways for New York City. William E. Worthen (Past President and Hon. M. ASCE) was appointed Chief Engineer and Parsons was his Deputy Chief Engineer. Although only 32 at the time, Parsons had already written books on “Turnouts” and “Track” during his work with the Erie Railroad Company. In 1894, a new Rapid Transit Act was passed by the Legislature, authorizing another rapid transit commission to plan a subway and to offer its construction contract for public bidding. Parsons was made Chief Engineer of the new Commission, but the project lagged due to legal difficulties and the outbreak of the Spanish American War.
With the outbreak of the Spanish American War, Parsons entered the service as a Captain in one of the Volunteer Engineer Regiments. He was soon promoted to Chief of Engineers of the New York National Guard with the rank of Brigadier General and was given command of the Regiment at Peekskill, New York, teaching the principles of army engineering, but the appointment only lasted for the summer of the war.
Parsons was then asked to make surveys and plans for the construction of railway lines in China. During part of 1898 and 1899, he surveyed 730 miles of a line from Hankow to Canton and of 270 miles of reconnaissance on other lines. Subsequently, a company was organized to build the railroad, and Parsons was elected its President. He served as such for several years, resulting in his book titled “An American Engineer in China.”
Late in 1899, Parsons returned to New York City to resume work on the subway project. Work began in March 1900, and he continued as Chief Engineer of the Rapid Transit Commission until operation started in 1904. In 1904, Parsons was appointed a member of the Isthmian Canal Commission. Early in 1905, he visited Panama as a member of an International Committee of Engineers, and he and its majority reported in favor of a sea-level canal. However, in February 1906, President Roosevelt approved the lock-type of canal as recommended by the minority of five other American engineers.
In 1904, Parsons was appointed to the Advisory Board of Engineers for the Royal Commission on London Traffic, serving on the Board with Sir Benjamin Baker (Hon. M. ASCE) and Sir John Wolfe Wolfe-Barry, two of the best known and most distinguished British engineers. Parsons was highly praised and was made a Director of the District Railway of London. In 1908, he read a paper before Britain’s Institution of Civil Engineers, describing the design and construction of the New York Subways, for which he was awarded the Telford Gold Medal.
In 1905, Parsons organized the firm of William Barclay Parsons, Consulting Engineers and with Eugene Klapp as a partner, they undertook the engineering and construction of the Steinway Tunnel under the East River from Manhattan to Queens in New York City. In 1909, the name of their firm was changed to Barclay Parsons and Klapp and its membership was increased by the inclusion of Henry M. Brinckerhoff as a partner. Walter J. Douglas (M. ASCE) was added as a fourth partner and in 1920, the name of the firm was changed to Parsons, Klapp, Brinckerhoff, and Douglas. John P. Hogan (M. ASCE) was admitted to partnership in 1926.
Parsons became active in the design and construction of hydroelectric power plants when the generation of hydroelectric energy was in its infancy in the eastern United States. From 1900 to 1902, he worked with H. de Berkeley Parsons on the design of the Spier Falls Plant on the Hudson River. The dam was designed and constructed under the supervision of the Parsons brothers. In 1905, the firm acted as Consulting Engineers for the hydroelectric development on the Susquehanna River at McCall’s Ferry, Pennsylvania, and in 1906 and 1907, it supervised the construction of the hydroelectric power plant at Colliers, New York on the same river. Between 1908 and 1911, the firm designed the hydroelectric power plant at Ephratah, New York on Garoga Creek, which was the highest-head waterpower plant in the East with a head of 300 ft. This plant was associated with Peck’s Lake Dam and Garoga Dam. From 1911 to 1914, the firm acted as Consulting Engineers to the Niagara, Lockport, and Ontario Power Company, designing and supervising the construction of that company’s hydroelectric power plant near Altmar, New York.
In the same period, Parsons was active in various engineering works in Cuba; his firm designed and supervised the construction of the Almandares Bridge and of the docks of the Port of Havana Docks Company, the first all-reinforced-concrete docks in the Western Hemisphere.
In 1905, Parsons was chosen as Chief Engineer of the Cape Cod Canal and spent nine years designing and constructing this waterway. For the description of the design and construction of this work in his paper, “The Cape Cod Canal”, Parsons was awarded the Norman Medal by ASCE in 1918.
Parsons spent much of the period from 1904 to 1917 on studies and reports on urban and interurban transit for San Francisco, Detroit, Cambridge (Massachusetts), Baltimore, Chicago, Philadelphia, Toronto (Ontario, Canada), and other cities. In 1916 and 1917, he acted as Chairman of the Chicago Transit Commission, reporting on the feasibility of subways in that city. He contributed an article on “Rapid Transit” for the Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
In 1915, Parsons was appointed Chairman of the Joint Commission of Engineering Societies to urge the organization of an engineering reserve in the U.S. Army, and in 1916, his efforts were successful when the Nation al Defense Act was passed, creating the Officers Reserve Corps. He was commissioned a Major and helped organize the regiment which became, when the U.S. entered World War I, the 11th Engineers. Soon after Congress declared war, the Federal Government appointed a Military Railways Commission to study the measures to be taken for the transportation of large bodies of soldiers and huge quantities of war material from the U.S. to France and to the battlefronts, and Parsons was a member of this Commission. The Commission inspected the British and French battlefronts and filed its report to the War Department. Parsons was then reassigned to the 11th Engineers, which was then in England, as its Lieutenant Colonel. From May 1918 to May 1919, Parsons was its commanding officer, and he was promoted to Colonel in October 1918. The 11th Engineers participated in several important battles during 1917 and 1918. After the war, Parsons was transferred to the Engineer Reserve Corps and in 1922, he was appointed Deputy Chief Engineer with the rank of Brigadier General. For the work and valor described above, Parsons received the Victory Medal with five clasps, the Distinguished Service Medal, and a citation for conspicuous service from the U.S., the Distinguished Service Order from Great Britain, the Order of the Crown from Belgium, and the Legion of Honor from France. After the war, Parson wrote his book titled “American Engineers in France.” He subsequently wrote “Robert Fulton and the Submarine” and collected a tremendous volume of data for his contemplated four-volume work to be titled “Engineers and Engineering of the Renaissance”, which was published after his death.
After the war, Parsons returned to New York City and continued as the Senior Member of his firm. He worked on the design and construction of hydroelectric power plants on the Hudson River and was actively engaged in the planning of a large hydroelectric power plant on the Colorado River at Diamond Creek in Arizona, which contemplated a dam of 500 ft height and 1,000,000 hp capacity.
In 1920, Parson was chosen Consulting Engineer of the New York Water Power Investigation, organized by several large public utility companies operating in New York, with the object of determining the available and economically feasible hydropower sites throughout the State. This work continued until 1923. Parsons was also chosen by New York City to represent the City’s interests in its controversy with the Federal Government on the question of extending the pierhead lines into the North River.
Parsons was active outside the profession as one of the Trustees of Columbia University, starting in 1897 and he was elected Chairman in 1917, continuing in that roll until his death in 1932. He was also Chairman of the Joint Administrative Board of the Medical Center, which directed the building of the Presbyterian Hospital.
At the invitation of the Engineering Laboratories of Cambridge University in England in 1929, Parsons gave two lectures, one on subways and the other on skyscrapers. He was a Member of the Britain’s Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE), a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an Honorary Member of the Institution of Architects, and a Member of Societe des Ingenieurs Civils de France. As a Trustee of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, D.C., he took special interest in their archaeological explorations made in Yucatan. In 1909, Parsons was awarded a Doctor of Laws degree by St. Johns College, Annapolis, Maryland; Doctor of Science by Princeton University in 1920; and Doctor of Engineering by Stevens Institute of Hoboken, New Jersey in 1920; and Doctor of Science by Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut in 1921.
Parsons married Anna DeWitt Reed of New York City on May 20, 1884, and they had a daughter and son. Parsons was elected a Junior of ASCE on June 7, 1882; a Member on November 2, 1887; and an Honorary Member on November 16, 1925. He served as a Director of ASCE from 1896 to 1898. Parsons died on May 9, 1932.
Sources for biographical text (book title/author, webpage URL) Memoir of William Barclay Parsons, Transactions of the ASCE, Volume 98, 1933, pages 1485 - 1492.
References Columbia University, C250 Celebrates Columbians Ahead of their Time William Barclay Parsons (https://c250.columbia.edu/c250_celebrates/remarkable_columbians/william_barclay_parsons.html)
