1.  Marriage Record:

2a.  1850 Census Index/Images (online at Ancestry.com; Image #60 of 220):  Sacramento City, Sacramento Co., CA, p. 165B, 601/630, enumerated 22 Oct 1850, official enumeration date 1 Jun 1850 (extracted by Diana Gale Matthiesen):

C P Huntington	29	M		Merchant		Conn
Danl Hammond	26	M		????		NY
Edw Shultz	32	M		"		"
David Hays	25	M		None		"
Jno C Trueman	21	M		Clerk		"
Alfred Robinson	28	M		"		Vt

2b.  1850 Census Index/Images (online at Ancestry.com; Image #13 of 46):  Town of Oneonta, Otsego Co., NY, p. 132B, 535/574, enumerated 9 Aug 1850, official enumeration date 1 Jun 1850 (extracted by Diana Gale Matthiesen):

Mrs. Collis Huntington	26	F			2500	Connecticut
Mary Stodard	18	F				"

Mary is Elizabeth's sister.

3.  1860 Census Images (online at Ancestry.com; Image #79 of 619):  Sacramento P.O., Second Ward in Sacramento, Sacramento Co., Ca, p. 79, PN 79, 696/635, enumerated 19 Jun 1860, official enumeration date 1 Jun 1860 (extracted by Diana Gale Matthiesen):

C P Huntington	39	M		Merchant	18000	15000	Conn
Elizabeth S "	35	F					"
Chas Miller	22	M		Clerk			NY

4.  1870 Census Index/Images (online at Genealogy.com; Image #9 of 54):  New York City (Ward 21), New York Co., NY, Roll 1009 (Book 1), p. 390A, PN 9, 34/52, enumerated 22 Jul 1870, official enumeration date 1 Jun 1870 (extracted by Diana Gale Matthiesen):

Huntington C P	50	M	W	Prest C P R R of Cal	10000	200,000	Connecticut
__________ Elizabeth S	47	F	W	At Home			Connecticut
__________ Clara E	9	F	W	At School			California
Hammond Scott	16	M	W	At School			California
Rogers Mary	?0	F	W	Cook			Ireland
Clarey Kate	30	F	W	Waitress			Ireland
Stoddard Hattie	18	F	W	At School			Connecticut
Heller? Mary	25	F	W	At Home			New York
Hammond Diomed?	33	F	W	At Home			New York
McCoy Andrew	30	M	W	Coachman			Ireland

5.  LDS.  Family Search: Census Records: 1880 United States (online at FamilySearch.org):

Census Place: New York, New York (Manhattan), New York City-Greater, New York
Source: FHL Film #1254880; NARA Film #T9-0880; Pg 414D
	Relation	Sex	Marr	Race	Age	Birthplace	Occupation	Fa	Mo
Collis P. HUNTINGTON	Self	M	M	W	58	CT	Vice Pres Pacific Rr	...	...
Elizabeth HUNTINGTON	Wife	F	M	W	57	CT	Keeping House	CT	CT
Clara E. HUNTINGTON	Dau	F	S	W	19	CA	At School	CT	CT
Jennie STODDARD	Niece	F	S	W	12	CA	At School	CT	CT
Annie WEBSTER	Other	F	S	W	40	MA	Housekeeper	MA	MA
Margrette CARROLL	Other	F	S	W	25	IRE	Servant	IRE	IRE
Annie LALLY	Other	F	S	W	35	IRE	Cook	IRE	IRE
Sarah MC SORLEY	Other	F	S	W	25	IRE	Servant	IRE	IRE

6.  1890 Census:  the 1890 Census Population Schedules were destroyed.

7.  1900 Census Index/Images (online at Genealogy.com; Image #3 of 31 — mis-indexed "Collie Huntington"):  2 Fifty-Seventh Street, Borough of Manhattan (19th Ward), New York City, New York County, NY, Roll 1115 (Book 2), p. 257A, SN 2, SD 1, ED 778, enumerated 2 Jun 1900, official enumeration date 1 Jun 1900 (extracted by Diana Gale Matthiesen):

1900:  for an explanation of the column headings, please see What the Numbers in the Federal Census Mean (missing columns contained no data).
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	19	20	22	23	24	25	26	27
17	17	Huntington Collis	Head	W	M	Oct 1820	79	M	16			CT	CT	CT	Financere	0	Y	Y	Y	O	F	H
		__________ Arabela	Wife	W	F	Jun 1856	43	M	16	1	1	AL	MD	VA			Y	Y	Y

Plus eleven servants not extracted:  three butlers, a footman, a cook, two maids, a laundress, a housekeeper, a fireman, and an elevator-man.  Arabella appears to be fibbing about her age and birthplace (she was born in 1852 in Virginia).

8.  1910 Census Every-Name-Index/Images (online at Ancestry.com):  can't find our widow, nor can I find her next husband, Henry Edward HUNTINGTON.  Are they in France?  They married in Paris in 1913.

9.  1920 Census Every-Name-Index/Images (online at Ancestry.com):  Arabella is living with her new husband, Henry Edward HUNTINGTON, in San Marino, Los Angeles Co., CA (q.v.)

10.  Henry Hall, ed.  1895-96.  America's Successful Men of Affairs: an Encyclopedia of Contemporaneous Biography.  Vol. 1.  The New York Tribune, New York (online at Ancestry.com; boldface added):

p. 337	COLLIS POTTER HUNTINGTON, president of The Southern Pacific Co., stands in the very front rank among the list of our remarkable men of action in America. Mr. Huntington was born in Harwinton, Litchfield county, Conn., Oct. 22, 1821, the fifth of nine children.  Leaving school at fourteen years of age, he began work for himself at a compensation of seven dollars a month.  Two years later, in 1837, he was in New York city, using the credit, which he had acquired through the letters of mercantile friends at home, to purchase goods, which he disposed of at a good profit.  The next that his friends knew of him, he was traveling through the South applying that faculty for negotiation, which was to be exercised later in life in the gigantic enterprises familiar to the whole world. At the age of twenty-two, Mr. Huntington with his brother Solon opened a general merchandise store at Oneonta, Otsego county, New York, but when the gold excitement of 1849 came, young Huntington, who had already found Oneonta too limited a field for his talents and usefulness, sailed on the 15th of March of that year for the Golden State.  He was detained with many others three months on the Isthmus, but, unlike many others, he spent that interval in adding to the $1,200 which he had drawn out from his business for the expenses of the trip, and by the time he had reached Sacramento he had $5,000 in hand, in marked contrast with a great many who,
p. 338	being less usefully occupied on the Isthmus or for other reasons arrived "dead broke." In Sacramento, he commenced business under the name of C.P. Huntington, but afterward established the well-known hardware house of Huntington & Hopkins, which has continued up to the present day. Numerous anecdotes are told of the marvelous genius for business evinced by Mr.Huntington while trading at No. 54 K street.  He studied the market carefully and bought in large quantities when supplies were low and sold in lesser quantities when the prices were high.  He was ready to buy almost anything, which was not perishable, at some price or another, and it used to be said of him in those days that if a man could not sell a thing any where else, he could always get cash from Huntington.  In 1856 the firm had a fortune. Almost from the first, Mr. Huntington had realized the tremendous advantages which would accrue from a railroad connecting California with the East.  Believing in its feasibility, he led some of his neighbors in Sacramento to join with him, and these seven men bound themselves to do the initial work of an instrumental survey across the mountain.  Early in 1861, The Central Pacific Railroad Co. was organized with an original capital of $8,500,000, and Mr. Huntington started for Washington, armed with maps and charts, to prove to Congress the practicability of the plans devised and to secure from the Government substantial aid.  The result of his labors is summed up in the acts of Congress of 1862 and 1864, by which the Government agreed to give lands and bonds to aid in the construction of the road.  It was a great triumph for Mr. Huntington and his associates, although the elation of the man, who had done most to achieve it, seems to have been tempered by the thought of what was yet before him.  His telegraphic despatch to his co-directors was characteristic:  "We have drawn the elephant, now let us see if we can harness him up." Mr. Huntington at once came on to New York to enlist the aid of capital; and in this field his persistence, courage, financial ability and knowledge of men were put to an exceptionally severe test.  The story of his experiences in Boston in the negotiation of bonds cannot be told in the brief outline of this sketch, but it offers an example of financial achievement, in the face of disbelief in the practicability of the great work and doubt of the value of the security proposed, which stamps the daring leader in the enterprise as one of the greatest financiers of the century.  The faith of the four men, Huntington, Hopkins, Stanford and Crocker, is illustrated by the characteristic way in which they solved the first problem of construction, when they agreed to pay personally for the labor of 800 men on the road for one year, and pledged their private fortunes to meet the obligations they assumed.  The construction race with The Union Pacific, which was rushed westward while The Central Pacific was pushed eastward, created unbounded excitement and enthusiasm as the wires flashed across the continent daily the progress made.  The tremendous strain, the anxieties and difficulties of this construction can never be adequately told. Freights, prices of material and wages rose enormously, and the necessity of paying in gold coin in California at a time when gold was at a high premium was an aggravating feature of these difficulties.  A hundred discouraging problems arose, under the burdens of which the builders, had they been ordinary men, must have been crushed; but with Mr. Huntington an unlimited capacity for work, natural powers which had never been impaired by the use of tobacco or liquors, and the rugged physical vitality which was the outgrowth of heredity and early training carried him safely through the ordeal.
p. 339	After the completion of The Central Pacific, May 10, 1869, Mr. Huntington and his three associates created and built The Southern Pacific Railroad.  When Colonel Scott sought to extend The Texas Pacific to the west coast, Mr. Huntington rapidly threw The Southern Pacific across the desert wastes of Arizona and New Mexico, met Colonel Scott's line east of El Paso and continued building eastwardly until he reached San Antonio.  In the meantime, he had acquired lines east of San Antonio, consisting of The Galveston, Harrisburg & San Antonio Railway, The Texas & New Orleans Railroad; The Louisiana Western Railroad and The Morgan's Louisiana & Texas Railroad & Steamship Co., which gave his system of lines a tide-water outlet at New Orleans.  In order to unify the operations of this vast system of transportation lines, so that the public might receive the fullest benefit therefrom, he organized, in 1884, The Southern Pacific Company, of Kentucky, which unifies in operation a system of transportation lines, consisting of twenty-six distinct corporations, comprising 8,024 miles of railroad and 4,976 miles of steamship lines in the United States, and 573 miles of railroad in the Republic of Mexico.  In addition to the foregoing, he is largely interested in other transportation enterprises.  He is president of The Guatemala Central Railroad, which is said to be the best built railroad property in the five Central American republics. He has aided the building of railroads and the development of coal mines in Vancouver, B.C.  He is president of The Pacific Mail Steamship Co., whose steamers ply between Japan and China, and has promoted steamship lines in Brazil.  Mr. Huntington also built and owns a dry dock and ship-building yard at Newport News, Va., which is pronounced to be the best appointed shipyard in the United States.

11.  Daniel Van Pelt.  c1898. Leslie's History of the Greater New York. Vol. III: Encyclopedia of New York Biography and Genealogy.  Arkell Publ. Co., NY (online at HeritageQuest at Genealogy.com; boldface added): 

p. 25	HUNTINGTON, COLLIS POTTER, has been associated with some of the most gigantic corporation enterprises which the nineteenth century has witnessed.  His was the mind to conceive, and his the profound abilities and tireless energy to execute, the stupendous project of a great trans-continental railroad to connect the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.  And when this notable enterprise had been brought to completion, perceiving that there was room for another and parallel line farther south, he at once undertook the construction of a second great trans-continental railroad and successfully consummated the project.  Again, he conceived and carried into execution the plan for the unification of the railroads west of the Mississippi River, in which he had become interested, into one grand system embracing 8,059 miles of track and known as the great Southern Pacific system.  This combines no less than twenty-three transportation corporations, bisecting the continent and ramifying throughout the Southwestern States, with terminii (sic) at seaports on
p. 26	the Atlantic Coast, the Pacific Coast, and various points on the Gulf of Mexico.  The Mexican International Railroad, which runs from the border at Eagle Pass to Durango in the State of Durango, embraces about six hundred and seventy miles in the Republic of Mexico.  Apart from his railroad interests, he has developed almost 20,000 miles of steamship lines, including a mail service across the Pacific Ocean and plying between San Francisco and China and Japan.  He has been prominently identified with railroad building and the development of coal mines at Vancouver, British Columbia, and is President of the Guatemala Central Railraod, the model railroad of the Central American States.  With all the rest, at Newport News, Va., he is proprietor of a notable drydock and shipbuilding yard, built by himself, and the best-appointed in the United States.  Even in this age of enormous material achievements, such an array of huge enterprises, associated with a single name, compels astonishment.  And well they may, for when we call over the great railroad kings of America, living and dead, allowing the fullest weight to the achievements of each, we find no parallel to the career of Mr. Huntington. Born in Harwinton, Litchfield County, Conn., October 22, 1821, he attended school until fourteen years of age and then obtained his freedom from his father agreeing to support himself.  The first year he made $7 a month or $84 in all.  This was not a great sum, but he saved it all.  At the end of two years, young Huntington came to New York City armed with commendations from business men.  On the strength of these, he bought goods on credit and sold them at a good profit.  During the next ten years, he traveled through the South and West doing a good business.  In partnership with his brother, he also opened a store at Oneonta, Otsego County, N.Y.  In 1848, upon the outbreak of the gold fever, they shipped a consignment of goods to California, Mr. C.P. Huntington following them in person.  He set out with $1,200 in cash, but being unexpectedly detained at the Isthmus of Panama, looked about him to see how he could utilize his capital with profit; and, by the time he reached California, he had increased it to $5,000.  He located at Sacramento at once and established a store under a tent.  In the spring of 1854, he went into partnership with Mark Hopkins and established the hardware firm of Huntington & Hopkins.  He studied the market and adopted the policy of buying in large quantities when the price was low.  In a few years, he and his partner had acquire large fortunes. In 1860, Mr. Huntington conceived the bold project of the Central Pacific Railroad and enlisted six others with himself in a company, with capitalization of $8,500,000.  He went to Washington, and, as
	[Engraved portrait of C.P. Huntington.]
p. 27	the result of his prowess there, secured the Congressional Acts of 1862 and 1864, which afforded Goverment aid in lands and bonds.  Upon the achievement of this legislation, he telegraphed to his fellow capitalists:  "We have drawn the elephant; now let us see if we can harness him up."  In pursuance of this further task, he visited New York City and Boston seeking to interest capitalists and scored one of the most brilliant successes in promoting.  Of the original stockholders, three stood shoulder to shoulder with Mr. Huntington — Mark Hopkins, Charles Crocker, and Leland Stanford.  Prior to his efforts at Washington, these three had united with him in defraying the cost of a preliminary survey across the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and they now joined with him in risking their private fortunes, agreeing to keep eight hundred men at work on the construction of the road for a year, and out of their private means building the required mileage, which enabled them to realize on the Government bonds.  Then came the rival enterprise, the Union Pacific, and the race in construction between this line, pushing west, and the Central Pacific, pushing east.  Mr. Huntington, as is well known, brought his road triumphantly through this crisis, completing the line, May 10, 1869. He next projected the Southern Pacific, rapidly laying its tracks across Arizona and New Mexico, meeting Colonel Thomas Scott's western extension of his lines, but pushing on to San Antonio where he connected with lines of his own already acquired in anticipation — the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio, the Texas and New Orleans, the Louisiana Western, and Morgan's Louisiana and Texas Railroad and Steamship Company.  He thus had a tide-water outlet at New Orleans into the Gulf.  Later on, by building another series of roads east of the Mississippi, he joined the Chesapeake and Ohio to the Southern Pacific, and at last had an outlet upon the Atlantic seaboard as well, with a continuous railroad line, nearly 5,000 miles in length, from Portland, Ore., to Newport News, Va. We thus have before us a mere bird's-eye view of these great achievements.  A large number of other enterprises which, though small by comparison, would loom up as notable projects in the lives of most men, we must pass over without mention.  Mr. Huntington is President of the Southern Pacific Company, Vice-President of the Central Pacific Railroad Company, President of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, President of the Guatemala Central Railroad Company, and execuive head of various others, while the list of important corporations of which he is a director would present a formidable array. It has been a matter of pride with Mr. Huntington that through all these years of business risk and of stupendously costly operations not
p. 28	a single railroad that he organized and built has ever defaulted a coupon.  In the formation of his great system it was of course inevitable that some old and bankrupt roads should come into his possession in order to form necessary links of the great chain; but all, or practicaly all, of these he brought up finally to a basis on which their bonds paid the interest regularly.  For sixty years Mr. Huntington's paper has been on the market — sixty years, including, in their stretch, the panics of '37, '57, '73, '84, and '93 — but in all that time not a single piece of it has gone to protest, and his personal indorsements have ever been the the heaviest stone in the foundations of his official as well as personal credit.

12.  Rossiter Johnson, ed.  1904. Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans.  Vol. V.  The Biographical Society, Boston, MA (online at Ancestry.com; boldface added):

p. 443	HUNTINGTON, Collis Potter, railroad builder and manager, was born in Harwinton, Conn., April 16, 1821; son of William and Elizabeth (Vincent) Huntington; grandson of Joseph and Rachel (Preston) Huntington; great grandson of John and Mehitabel (Metcalf) Huntington; great2 grandson of Lieut. Samuel and Mary (Clark) Huntington; great3 grandson of Dea. Simon and Sarah (Clark) Huntington; and great4 grandson of Simon and Margaret (Baret) Huntington the immigrants. His father was poor; and Collis, who was one of nine children, was brought up to work hard.  As he himself tells it, "when he was too young to carry wood he picked up chips."  He attended district school until he was fourteen and then went to work for a neighboring farmer at seven dollars a month and his board and clothes.  He saved all of this, and on the strength of his good name, and armed with letters of commendation from the merchants of his section, he went to New York and purchased a bill of goods on credit.   He travelled in the southern states extensively during his early years of business until in 1843 he established, in conjunction with his brother Solon, a merchandise store in Oneonta, N.Y.  In March, 1848, young Huntington started with a number of other young men for California, via the isthmus of Panama.  During a delay of three months on the isthmus, he increased his capital stock from $1200 to $5000, by means of trading.  He had previously sent a consignment of goods around Cape Horn in 1848, and on his arrival in San Francisco he immediately went to Sacramento on a schooner, paying for his passage and the freight on his stock of hardware by assisting in loading and unloading freight at one dollar per hour.  In Sacramento he erected a tent and placing in it his stock of hardware, such as was used in the mines, he began business on his own account. He soon after met and formed a partnership with Mark Hopkins and by 1856 the firm of Huntington & Hopkins was was one of the wealthiest on the Pacific slope.  He confined his business to trade, and did
p. 444	not engage in mining or in speculation in mining stock. In 1860, when the necessity for a transcontinental railroad became apparent, and the only question to be solved was the possibility of crossing the Sierra Nevada, Mr. Huntington agreed with Theodore D. Judah, a skilful civil engineer, to raise the funds with which to make the survey across the mountains, both men having faith in the success of the route proposed by Mr. Judah.  Through Mr. Huntington's representations made to Charles Crocker, Leland Stanford and Mark Hopkins, the fund was raised, and the Central Pacific Railroad Company of California was organized in 1861, with a capital of $8,500,000, with Mr. Stanford as president, Mr. Huntington as vice-president and Mr. Hopkins as treasurer.  With Mr. Judah, Mr. Huntington visited Washington, D.C., and obtained from congress authority to build a railroad from the navigable waters of the Sacramento river eastward to the Union Pacific railroad.  The government conceded to the company every alternate square mile of the public lands through a strip extending ten miles on each side of the railroad, and a loan of six per cent thirty-year bonds of the United States, to the extent of $32,000 to $48,000, for every mile of road built.  With this franchise secured, Mr. Huntington telegraphed to California: "We have drawn the elephant, now let us see if we can harness him."  He offered $1,500,000 of the bonds at par for cash, and after making himself and his associates responsible for the whole amount, he succeeded in obtaining the money.  As vice-president and practical manager, he built the first, say, fifty miles of the road.  It was not the government subsidy, but the private fortunes of C.P. Huntington and his associates, that secured the first fifty miles of the first transcontinental railroad, on which the government then held the first mortgage.  He afterward controlled and operated, as president, or chief head, the Southern Pacific system, including the Central Pacific, the Chesapeake & Ohio, the Chesapeake, Ohio & SouthWestern, the Kentucky Central, the Louisville, New Orleans & Texas, and many other lines of railroad, including the Mexican International R.R., and the Guatemala Central R.R., a total of 8900 miles of steel track lines. He also became largely interested in steamship lines to Newport News, Va., to Brazil, to China andre (sic) Japan, covering 16,900 miles of steam water lines, and founded at Newport News a prosperous city, where he established a great shipyard.  He was a fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers. He was twice married: first, in 1844, to Elizabeth C. Stoddard, of Litchfield, Conn., who died in 1883; and secondly, July 12, 1884, to Mrs. Arabella D. Worsham, of New York city. In 1897 he gave to the Metropolitan Museum of Art a portrait of George Washington, painted by Charles Wilson Peale; and in 1898 Mrs. Huntington presented to the Normal and Industrial institute, Tuskegee, Ala., the sum of $10,000 for a girls' dormitory.  Mr. Huntington erected a mansion on Fifth avenue, New York city, which, with the picture gallery, was, at the time of his death, valued at about $3,000,000; a country home at Throggs Neck, N.Y.; a mansion in San Francisco, Cal., and an ample camp in the mountains of northern New York.  He also erected, in 1885, a massive granite chapel at a cost of $60,000, in his native town, and presented it to the Congregational church of Harwinton, as a memorial to his mother, who had been a member of that church.  He also caused to be erected in Woodlawn cemetery, New York city, at a cost of over $100,000, a mausoleum, no single stone in the structure, it is said, weighing less than eighteen tons.  His nephew, Henry Edwards Huntington, was at the time of his uncle's death first vice-president of the Southern Pacific railway.  Mr. Huntington bequeathed his collection of pictures to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the bequest to take effect after the death of his widow and of his adopted son, Archer M. Huntington. He bequeathed his New York residence to Mrs. Huntington for life, at her death to Archer M. Huntington absolutely, or in default of issue by him, to Yale university absolutely.  This was his only bequest to the cause of higher education, as he frequently expressed his regret at the tendency to the increase of higher education for the masses at the expense of valuable time which should be devoted to learning practical business methods.  His other public bequests were $100,000 to the Hampton Normal and Agricultural institute, Hampton, Va., for the practical education of the Negro and Indian youths, and $25,000 to the Chapin Home, New York city.  At the time of his death his fortune was estimated at from $50,000,000 to $80,000,000.  Mr. Huntington died suddenly at Pine Knot Camp, Raquette Lake, N.Y., Aug. 13, 1900.
Other secondary sources say our subject was born 22 Oct 1821, not 16 Apr 1821, but the only primary record I have found (viz., our subject's 1900 census record) says Oct 1820.

13.  Anon.  1915.  The Huntington Family in America: a Genealogical Memoir of the Known Descendants of Simon Huntington from 1633 to 1915.  Huntington Family Assn., Hartford, CT (online at GenealogyLibrary.com).  See excerpt. 

14.  Rockwell D. Hunt, ed.  1932.  California and Californians.  Vol. 2.  Lewis Publ., Chicago (online at Ancestry.com).  On p. 331:

By this time there had been formed in California an anti-slavery party which, though not strong in numbers at first, contained on its roster many prominent names, such as Collis P. Huntington, Cornelius Cole, Mark Hopkins, Charles and Edwin B. Crocker, and Leland Stanford.  David C. Broderick, United States Senator 1857-59, also made his influence felt against the “slave oligarchy” that dominated the State politics of the time.

15.  Eric Howard.  1932.  "Collis P. Huntington."  Pages 76-77 in Rockwell D. Hunt, ed.  California and Californians.  Vol. 4.  Lewis Publ., Chicago (online at Ancestry.com; boldface added). 

p. 76

Collis P. Huntington. In Collis P. Huntington, Connecticut produced a man of business whose financial skill amounted to genius.  He was born at Harwinton. Connecticut. October 22, 1821, the descendant of a noted New England family.  At fifteen he started peddling clocks through the South and West, and it was during these journeys that the first realized the country's need for adequate means of transportation.  It is said of Huntington that after he had once traversed a road he could draw an accurate map of the region.  He possessed a broad vision of the country as a whole and dreamed of giving it unity by means of railroads.  When gold was discovered in California, he immediately set out for the new El Dorado.  Unlike many of the pioneers who arrived in the new country without funds, Huntington actually increased his resources on the way.  He did so by judicious trading while his party was held up in Panama for several months.  Upon his arrival in California, he started a hardware store in Sacramento. Later he became the partner of Mark Hopkins, and the firm of Huntington & Hopkins was one of the most successful in the state.  With Hopkins, Charles Crocker and Leland Stanford — the Big Four — he laid plans for the building of the Central Pacific Railroad, which was begun in 1859 and completed ten years later.  Each of these men had an important part in that work.  Huntington acted as fiscal agent and, in that capacity, solved the enormous financial difficulties of the project.  Later, with his associates, he built the Southern Pacific, which was completed in 1881, and the Chesapeake and Ohio.  In time he came to operate forty-four railroads and branches along continuous lines from Portland, Oregon, via San Francisco and New Orleans, to Newport News, Virginia.  The industrial development of the West and South is due in

p. 77

no small degree to his grasp of the problem of transportation. Whatever criticism may be made of his methods, which were often individualistic in the extreme, he did accomplish a work of importance and benefit to the country at large.  As president of the Southern Pacific, he also acquired a number of steamship lines and built up a veritable empire of trade.  He also found time to become a prodigal patron of art, of which he was keenly appreciative, and to interest himself in the education of negroes and Indians.  At his death he bestowed his $3,000,000 collection of paintings upon the Metropolitan Museum, and during his life he gave liberally to the Hampton and Tuskegee institutes.  Something of his personality is revealed in a story of his boyhood.  He was working on a farm for a neighbor at $7 a month and board.  At the end of a year's work he displayed his savings: $84.  “Why,” said a friend, “that's every cent of what you earned!”  “Exactly,” said Huntington, “that's why I didn't save any more.”  He died August 13, 1900, at his camp in the Adirondacks, at the age of seventy-nine.  His fortune was estimated at from $35,000,000 to $80,000,000.  He was one of the big men, one of the great builders, of his time — that period in our history which saw the amazing industrial development of a rich, new country.  Huntington and his associates made that development possible.  All Americans have shared in the fruits of their work.

16.  Stephen Birmingham.  1982.  The Grande Dames. Simon & Schuster, NY.

p.188

Few women in American history have managed to conceal their pasts as successfully as Arabella.  While passing as his "niece," she was the mistress of C.P. Huntington for nearly fifteen years. Collis Potter Huntington was the mastermind behind the enormous Central Pacific and Southern Pacific Railroads.  He was a man of stupendous wealth who kept his first wife so totally in the background that most people did not know he was married.

17.  George Childs Kohn, ed.  2001.  The New Encyclopedia of American Scandal.  Checkmark Books, NY.  Index at Ancestry.com indicates an entry for Collis P. HUNTINGTON.

18.  Biography: Collis Potter HUNTINGTON (online at the web site of the Huntington Family Association).