Born in Watervliet, New York, he moved to San Francisco in 1852 to join his five brothers in a retail grocery store. After moving the business to Sacramento, he became a founder of the Republican party. One of the "Big Four" (along with Charles Crocker, Mark Hopkins and Collis P. Huntington), and president of the Central Pacific Railroad, he was Governor from 1862-63. He went on to become a US Senator in 1885. He and his wife Jane created an endowment for Stanford University, in honor of their son Leland Stanford Jr., who died in 1884 at the age of 15.