Alexander Johnston Cassatt (December 8, 1839 – December 28, 1906) was the seventh president of the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR), serving from June 9, 1899, to December 28, 1906. Family and early life Alexander Cassatt was born on December 8, 1839, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the eldest of seven children born to Robert Simpson Cassat (later Cassatt), and his wife Katherine Cassatt, the former Katherine Kelso Johnston. The elder Cassatt was a successful stockbroker and land speculator. He was descended from the French Huguenot Jacques Cossart, who came to New Amsterdam in 1662. Alexander's younger sister was the impressionist painter Mary Cassatt. His mother Katherine came from a banking family. She was educated and very well read. It was said that of the seven children Alexander most resembled his mother in "appearance and temperament." In 1856 he entered Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to study Civil Engineering where his senior thesis was entitled "Review of Pressure Turbine." After graduating in the summer of 1859, Robert Cassatt took Alexander to see a former neighbor from Lancaster Pennsylvania, James Buchanan, 15th President of the United States. By the fall of 1860, Alexander had secured a position as a surveyor or rodman by the Georgia Railroad. By the time the State of Georgia voted to secede from the Union in January 1861, Cassatt had abandoned his work as surveyor on the Dalton-Knoxville line of the Georgia Railroad and returned to Pennsylvania without seeing any military service during the Civil War. Career Pennsylvania Railroad Frequently referred to as A. J. Cassatt, the great accomplishment under his stewardship was the planning and construction of tunnels under the Hudson River to finally bring PRR's trunk line into New York City. His purchase of a controlling interest in the Long Island Rail Road and the construction of tunnels under the East River created a PRR commuter network on Long Island. Unfortunately, Cassatt died before his grand Pennsylvania Station in New York City was completed. Cassatt joined the PRR in 1861 as an engineer and rapidly rose through the ranks. He was a vice president in 1877 when the Pittsburgh Railway Riots broke out in 1877, and had become Pennsy First Vice-President by 1880. He was disappointed to be passed over for the presidency and resigned from the company in 1882. During his absence he devoted his time to horse raising but still was able to organize a new railroad the New