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Frederick Billings (September 27, 1823 – September 30, 1890) was an American lawyer and financier. From 1879 to 1881 he was president of the Northern Pacific Railway.
He was born in Royalton, Windsor County, Vermont, graduated from the University of Vermont in 1844 and went on to pursue a career in law. In 1848, during the California Gold Rush, he moved to San Francisco, becoming the city's first land claims lawyer. Later he would partner with Henry Halleck, in the law firm of Halleck, Peachy & Billings [1] [2], which became a leading law firm in San Francisco. While in California, he was a trustee of the College of California (later, the University of California at Berkeley) and suggested that the college be named for George Berkeley. [3]
In 1864, he returned to Woodstock, Vermont, and in 1869 purchased George Perkins Marsh's former estate. Billings had read Marsh's pioneering volume on ecology called Man and Nature, and set about to put into practice his theories on conservation. Billings and his heirs set about purchasing many failing farms and reforesting much of the surrounding hillsides with Norway Spruce, Scots Pine, European Larch, and many native species. Today, the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park in Woodstock manages and interprets what is probably the oldest managed forest in the United States.
Billings later purchased one of the original twelfth interests in the Northern Pacific Railway and, from 1879-1881, served as its president. He later constructed a chapel for the Congregational Church of Woodstock and built a church in Billings, Montana, a town named for him. He also built and endowed Billings Library, completed in 1885 for The University of Vermont, and purchased the George Perkins Marsh collection of 12,000 volumes for it.
| Preceded by Charles Barstow Wright |
President of Northern Pacific Railway 1879 – 1881 |
Succeeded by Henry Villard |
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