Born: February 20, 1848
Died: September 9, 1909
Married: Mary Williamson Averill from Ogdensburg, New York
Children: Averell Harriman
Edward Henry Harriman is best known as director of the Union Pacific Railroad, and a ruthless railroad magnate, but what is not well known is his lifelong friendship with Dr. E. L. Trudeau and his service on the Board of Trudeau's Adirondack Cottage Sanitarium. Trudeau wrote fondly of Harriman in his autobiography. One of the Paul Smith's Hotel cottages on Lower St. Regis Lake — formerly called Harriman Cottage and now the site of a new building housing the Adirondack Watershed Institute — was called Trudeau Cottage in an early hotel brochure.
In 1899, Harriman financed and accompanied a scientific expedition to catalog the flora and fauna of the Alaska coastline from its southern panhandle to Prince William Sound. Among the scholars who joined him were John Burroughs and John Muir, as well as Dr. Trudeau's son, Ned.