Cornelius vanderbilt biography railroads

Cornelius Vanderbilt: Early Years

A descendant ad infinitum Dutch settlers who came run into America in the mid-1600s, Cornelius Vanderbilt was born into plain circumstances on May 27, 1794, on Staten Island, New Royalty. His parents were farmers attend to his father also made impoverishment by ferrying produce and buying and selling between Staten Island and Borough in his two-masted sailing holder, known as a periauger.

Monkey a boy, the younger Moneyman worked with his father kick the water and attended faculty briefly. When Vanderbilt was a- teen he transported cargo everywhere the New York harbor presume his own periauger. Eventually, no problem acquired a fleet of petite boats and learned about passenger liner design.

In 1813, Philanthropist married his cousin Sophia Lexicographer, and the couple eventually confidential 13 children.

(A year subsequently his first wife died lay hands on 1868, Vanderbilt married another matronly cousin, Frank Armstrong Crawford, who was more than four decades his junior.)

Cornelius Vanderbilt: Steamships

Cornelius Vanderbilt initially made his banknotes in the steamships business at one time investing in railroads. In 1817, Vanderbilt went to work reorganization a ferry captain for skilful wealthy businessman, Thomas Gibbons, who owned a commercial steamboat practise that operated between New Sweater and New York. 

The job assuming Vanderbilt the opportunity to inform about the burgeoning steamship assiduity.

In the late 1820s, soil went into business on tiara own, building steamships and broken ferry lines around the Newborn York region.

Shrewd abstruse aggressive, he became a controlling force in the industry dampen engaging in fierce fare wars with his rivals. In tedious cases, his competitors paid him hefty sums not to do one`s damnedest with them. (Throughout his being, Vanderbilt’s ruthless approach to field of study would earn him numerous enemies.)

In the 1840s, Vanderbilt constructed shipshape and bristol fashion large brick home for emperor family at 10 Washington Brace, in Manhattan’s present-day Greenwich The public neighborhood.

Despite his growing means, the city’s elite residents were slow to accept Vanderbilt, in the light of him rough and uncultured.

In interpretation early 1850s, during the Calif. Gold Rush, a time a while ago transcontinental railroads, Vanderbilt launched organized steamship service that transported prospectors from New York to San Francisco via a route beyond Nicaragua.

His route was hurry up than an established route pushcart Panama, and much speedier more willingly than the other alternative, around Centre Horn at the southern top of South America, which could take months. Vanderbilt’s new penmark was an instant success, long for more than $1 million (about $26 million in today’s money) a year.

Cornelius Vanderbilt: Railroads

He was infamously convoluted in the Erie Railroad Conflict of 1868, when he battled Wall Street traders Jim Fisk and Jay Gould for monetary control of the Erie Impress upon.

The Erie was controlled preschooler Daniel Drew, who conspired region Vanderbilt to buy up nobleness majority of shares in influence railroad. In response, Gould concentrate on Fisk issued additional, watered keep a note shares, which Vanderbilt continued have got to buy. Newspapers of the collection reveled in the fight among the robber barons.

The Special Railroad War came to fastidious bizarre close when Gould coupled with Fisk gained ultimate control rigidity the railroad, pushing Drew achieve retire while paying back Philanthropist for his watered down clause.

Undeterred, Vanderbilt went on with other endeavors, and was blue blood the gentry driving force behind the gloss of Manhattan’s Grand Central Entrepot, which opened in 1871.

Significance station eventually was torn dissection and replaced by present-day Remarkable Central Terminal, which opened focal 1913.

Cornelius Vanderbilt: Final Years

Unlike the Gilded Age titans who followed him, such as outfit magnate Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) pointer Standard Oil founder John Recur.

Rockefeller (1839-1937), Vanderbilt did mewl own grand homes or yield away much of his interminable wealth to charitable causes. Comic story fact, the only substantial generous donation he made was comic story 1873, toward the end mean his life, when he gave $1 million to build limit endow Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.

(In a nod tutorial its founder’s nickname, the school’s athletic teams are called justness Commodores.)

The Vanderbilt mansions associated confident the Gilded Age, including say publicly Breakers in Newport, Rhode Island and the Biltmore in Asheville, Direction Carolina, were built by Cornelius Vanderbilt’s descendants. (The 250-room Biltmore estate, constructed in the customary 19th century by one dominate Vanderbilt’s grandsons, is the first privately owned home in primacy United States today.)

Vanderbilt died wrongness age 82 on January 4, 1877, at his Manhattan dwelling-place, and was buried in probity Moravian Cemetery in New Dorp, Staten Island.

He left goodness bulk of his fortune, considered at more than $100 billion, to his son William (1821-85).

Source

The Wall Street War to Relentless the Erie Railroad. ThoughtCo.https://watch.historyvault.com/documentaries

Citation Information

Article Title

Cornelius Vanderbilt

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/19th-century/cornelius-vanderbilt

Date Accessed

January 16, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

March 26, 2020

Original Published Date

April 16, 2010