About Andrew Onderdonk
Andrew Onderdonk (30 August 1848 – 21 June 1905) was an American construction contractor who worked on several major projects in the West, including the San Francisco seawall in California and the Canadian Pacific Railway in British Columbia. He was born in New York City to an established ethnic Dutch family. He received his education at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He married Sarah Delia Hilman of Plainfield, New Jersey. After starting his career surveying town sites and roads in New Jersey, he headed west to work as a general manager for financier Darius Ogden Mills on several engineering contracts. He died in Oscawana-on-the Hudson, New York, on June 21, 1905. In 1879, Onderdonk won a series of contracts to build the western section of what is now the Canadian Pacific Railway. He won the bid to remove the rock and dirt from the tunnel beneath the Hudson River and used the debris to expand Governor's Island.
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