Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Colonel James Ward Eddy was the builder of Angels Flight funicular railroad in Los Angeles, California. Eddy was born in Java, New York and matriculated at Genesee College in Lima, New York. He taught school in western New York before going to Illinois in 1853, where he studied law and was admitted to the bar in Chicago in 1855. He practiced in Batavia, Illinois, where he also served on the Board of Education and as a county supervisor. In 1866, he was elected to the state legislature, and in 1870 to the state senate.