Edgar Jadwin (c1866-1931)
1931 Obituary[1]
"THE LATE MAJOR-GENERAL E. JADWIN.
We note, with regret, the death of Major-General Edgar Jadwin, which is reported as having taken place on March 2, in the Panama Canal Zone. General Jadwin, who was a distinguished American civil engineer, was born 65 years ago in the State of Pennsylvania, and educated at Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania. Proceeding to the United; States Military Academy, he passed out head of his class in 1890, and received a commission in the Corps of Engineers. He was soon afterwards placed in charge of improvement, works at Ellis Island, New York Harbour, this constituting his first official appointment. In 1907, he proceeded to the Isthmus of Panama to take up the appointment of construction engineer of the Panama Canal, under the late Colonel Goethals, and remained in this capacity for four years, relinquishing the appointment in 1911, Upon the entry of the United States into the European war, he organised and commanded the. 15th Regiment United States (Railway) Engineers, the first American unit to proceed overseas to England in; 191-7. Soon after his arrival in France, he was promoted to the rank of brigadier-general and was made director of light railways and roads. Subsequently, General Jadwin became director of construction and forestry, and was placed in charge of the general construction programme connected with the operations of. the United States armies in France. He'had. some' 160,000 men under his orders^ carrying out dredging, road and railway construction, and similar work. For his services, during the war he was awarded a Companionship of the Order of the Bath, and also received the decoration of Officer of the Legion of Honour and the- United States- Distinguished Service Medal.
In 1919, General Jadwin was appointed a member of the United States Mission to Poland, and later carried out observation duties in the Ukraine. In 1926, he was promoted to the rank of major-general, and was appointed Chief of the United States Engineer Corps. He served as senior member of the United States section of the Joint Engineering Board concerned with the St. Lawrence Waterway Project, and reference to his work in connection with the New York State Commission on this subject was made in Engineering as recently as February 27 last, on page 281. He was also senior member of the Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbours. General Jadwin was, in addition, a member of the Technical Advisory Committee of the Federal Oil Conservation Board and a delegate of the United States at the International Conference on the Oil Pollution of Navigable Rivers. As Chairman of the National Capital Park and Planning Commission he supervised the preparation of the plan, drawn up in 1927 and adopted by the United States Congress, for the control of floods in the Valley of the Mississippi. General Jadwin retired from the army in 1929, and in the same year President Hoover appointed him Chairman of the Interocean Canal Board."