Editing Isaac R. Trimble (section)

==Youth, education, building railroads==
Trimble was born in [[Frederick County, Virginia]], to John and Rachel Ridgeway Trimble, and his family moved to [[Culpeper County, Virginia]] shortly thereafter. As a young boy, Trimble's mother and father both died of fever within a short period of time, and he was sent to live with his half-brother in [[Kentucky]].  He was nominated by U.S. Representative [[Henry Clay]] to attend the [[United States Military Academy]] at [[West Point, New York]], from which he graduated in 1822, 17th in a class of 42. Although he excelled academically in engineering, he was commissioned as a [[brevet (military)|brevet]] [[Second Lieutenant#United States|second lieutenant]] of [[artillery]]. He served for ten years as a lieutenant in the 3rd and 1st U.S. Artillery regiments, and left the U.S. Army in May 1832, along with five of his West Point classmates, to pursue the emerging business of railroad construction.<ref>[http://www.pennock.ws/surnames/fam/fam16331.html The Pennocks of Primitive Hall website] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180817193343/http://www.pennock.ws/surnames/fam/fam16331.html |date=August 17, 2018 }}; Fiebeger, ''Dictionary of American Biography''; Eicher, p. 536; Krick, p. 60. Krick states that there were 42 cadets graduating in 1822, Eicher states 40.</ref>

Trimble was married twice: first, in 1831 to Maria Cattell Presstman of [[Charleston, South Carolina]], who died in 1855; second, to her sister, Ann Ferguson Presstman. By his first marriage he had two sons, David Churchill Trimble and William Presstman Trimble, who survived him. Soon after leaving the Army, Trimble moved to [[Maryland]] at the urging of his wife, and he subsequently considered it his home state.

He helped survey the route of the [[Baltimore and Ohio Railroad]]. He was a construction engineer for the [[Boston and Providence Railroad]]. He was chief engineer for [[Pennsylvania Railroad]] predecessors [[Baltimore and Susquehanna Railroad]]; [[Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad]] (serving under famous [[American Civil War]] era president [[Samuel Morse Felton Sr.]]), where he was responsible for constructing the [[President Street Station]], the line's southern terminal in east downtown waterfront  [[Baltimore]] in 1849–1850, now the oldest big city train depot left in America. Later  then Trimble went to the [[Philadelphia and Baltimore Central Railroad]]. From 1859 to 1861, he was superintendent of the [[Baltimore and Potomac Railroad]].

Following the firing on the Federal installation of [[Fort Sumter]] in [[Charleston, South Carolina|Charleston harbor]] in [[South Carolina]] in early April 1861, he led a contingent of [[Maryland National Guard|Maryland state militia]] to burn the railroad bridges around  Baltimore to prevent the entry of any more Federal regular army or Northern state militia from passing through the divided riotous city following  the bloodshed conflict of the [[Baltimore riot of 1861|Pratt Street Riots]] on April 19, 1861, on the orders of the [[Mayor of Baltimore]] [[George William Brown (mayor)|George William Brown]] and [[Governor of Maryland]] [[Hicks]].<ref>Fiebeger, ''Dictionary of American Biography''; [http://www.pennock.ws/surnames/fam/fam16331.html The Pennocks of Primitive Hall website] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180817193343/http://www.pennock.ws/surnames/fam/fam16331.html |date=August 17, 2018 }}; Eicher, p. 536; Krick, p. 60; Tagg, p. 328.</ref>