The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt

by T. J. Stiles

  17 Fowler, 199–201, 203–5.

  18 Hudson C. Tanner, “The Lobby” and Public Men from Thurlow Weed's Time (Albany: George MacDonald, 1888), 230.

  19 NYSAD 175, 86th sess., February 17, 1863, shows that the Harlem had unusually high revenues and expenses per ton/mile, making it a ripe target for reform.

  20 NYSAD 19, 90th sess., January 18, 1867.

  21 It is nearly impossible to accurately estimate how many shares anyone—least of all CV—held in the 1860s and ′70s. As will be seen, CV routinely transferred shares he owned into the names of others to disguise his holdings. Both press reports and WHV's testimony suggest that, by the end of the events described at least, CV owned half of the company's shares, not including those held by allies and family members. See HW, July 11, 1863; NYSAD 19, 90th sess., January 18, 1867. These reports, however, came later; on May 18, 1863, CV voted only 8,801 out of more than 114,000 shares (and 88,978 voted) at the annual stockholders' meeting and election; Directors' Minutes, May 18, 1863, HRR, reel 27, box 242, NYCRR.

  22 McPherson, 323–4; Mark Wahlgren Summers, The Era of Good Stealings (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 16–23.

  23 HW, July ii, 1863; Burrows & Wallace, 917.

  24 RGD, NYC 342:300D. See also Smith, 294, for an amusing description of Law.

  25 NYH, March 26, 1864. For examples of reports that name Law, see NYTr, April 24, 1863; Strong, 3:313; NYT, April 25, 1863. See also Lane, 191–2.

  26 Strong, 3:313; NYTr, April 24, 1863; NYH, April 24, 1863; HW, July 11, 1863. In truth, money-driven attempts to build a Broadway railroad (and the belief that corrupt railroad men had bought the legislature) had been a regular feature in Albany in recent years; see NYH, January 1, 1860.

  27 Burrows & Wallace, 835–8; Ernest A. McKay, The Civil War and New York City (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1990), 230–3.

  28 NYH, April 22, 24, 1863; HW, July 11, 1863; Fowler, 205; see also NYH, April 24, 1863; Directors' Minutes, April 22, 23, 1863, HRR, reel 27, box 242, NYCRR.

  29 NYH, April 24, 25, 1863; NYT, April 25, 1863; Strong, 3:313.

  30 CV to EC, May 13, 1863, fold. 3, box 81, ECP.

  31 Ibid.; Directors' Minutes, May 18, 19, 29, 1863, HRR, reel 27, box 242, NYCRR. The new board was seen as “the Vanderbilt ticket;” PS, May 28, 1863. The HRR minutes show that CV voted only 8,801 out of the 88,978 shares represented at the stockholders' meeting (about 114,000 existed). HFC had 1,350, AS had two thousand, and JHB had three thousand, all of which really might have been CVs property, held in their names. To achieve victory, then, CV drew upon the support of men who controlled many more shares, such as A. B. Baylis with 19,970, and Henry G. Stebbins (JLW's onetime partner) with 10,650, though they may have been holding shares for CV as well.

  32 Directors' Minutes, May 18, 19, 29, 1863, HRR, reel 27, box 242, NYCRR.

  33 NYH, April 22, 24, May 11, 1863; HW, July 11, 1863.

  34 H W, July 11, 1863; NYH, June 26, 1863. Henry Clews, Fifty Years in Wall Street (New York: Irving Publishing, 1908), 111, and Fowler, 206–8, repeat similar versions of this story.

  35 NYH, June 26, 1863; LW Dictation.

  36 NYH, June 26–9, July 13, 1863.

  37 HW, July 11, 1863.

  38 Ibid.; NYH, July 1–5, 1863; Independent, July 2, 1863; Strong, 3:328.

  39 At the election of 1864, CV voted 29,607 shares; Directors' Minutes, May 17, 1864, HRR, reel 27, box 242, NYCRR. As ever, it is impossible to know how many he really owned. On February 5, 1867, CV refused to tell a committee of the state legislature how much Harlem stock he owned, but his son William put the total at about half of the total number of shares; NYSAD 19, 90th sess., 1867.

  40 Strong, 3:329–30.

  41 Seymour J. Mandelbaum, Boss Tweed's New York (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1965), 58, 66–70.

  42 Summers, Good Stealings, 16–29, and throughout; Mark Wahlgren Summers, “‘To Make the Wheels Revolve We Must Have Grease’: Barrel Politics in the Gilded Age,” Journal of Policy History 14, no. 1 (2002): 49–72; Seymour J. Mandelbaum, Boss Tweed's New York (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1965), 46–75. Glenn C. Altschuler and Stuart M. Blumin argue in Rude Republic: Americans and Their Politics in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000), 8 (see also 84–5), that the “uncomfortably disreputable associations and activities” of mass party politics that rose in the 1830s alienated elites.

  43 Clews, 111; Fowler, 124; Medbery 92–3, 98. Lane, 193, accepts that Drew fought CV in the 1863 corner.

  44 RGD, NYC 366:300c.

  45 Clifford Browder, author of The Money Game in Old New York: Daniel Drew and His Times (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1986), a poorly sourced and unsatisfying biography of Drew, argues, 101–2, that Drew did not take part in the Harlem corner of 1863. I believe he is correct. Edmund Clarence Stedman, in The New York Stock Exchange (New York: Stock Exchange Historical Company, 1905), 174, observed that Drew “is said” to have opposed CV in the corner, but he appears to be simply citing Clews.

  46 OR ser. 3, vol. 3: 1083; J. C. Buckhout to CV February 11, May 23, 1864, Engineer's Office Letterbook, HRR, 1864, box 19, NYCRR.

  47 McKay, 216–29.

  48 McKay, 195–210, 216; Burrows & Wallace, 887–99. Maps in Burrows & Wallace, 891, and NYH, July 20, 1863, show no fires in the vicinity of CVs home.

  49 Burrows & Wallace, 896. On HFC and AS's continuing political prominence, see Strong, 3:101, 513.

  50 Jay Gould to EC, August 20, 1863, fold. 5, box 38, ECP.

  51 Klein, 15, 27–54, 72–3; RGD, NYC 347:737. Klein's biography remains definitive.

  52 George Rogers Taylor and Irene D. Neu, The American Railroad Network, 1861–1890 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1956), 2–29.

  53 NYT, November 24, 1854; NYSAD 114, 90th sess., 1867; NYSAD 38, 103rd sess., 1880.

  54 See the testimony of Edwin D. Worcester, HFC, AS, and Robert L. Banks, NYSAD 19, 90th sess., 1867. The importance of local freight to the Central can be seen from a chart provided in testimony by Worcester before Congress: in 1862, through freight amounted to 777,000 tons, local 610,000; in 1863, through 824,000, local 624,000; and local surpassed through in 1864, 790,000 to 766,000 through. Due to lesser mileage on local freight, the earnings from through freight were more than double. See SR 307, part 2, 43rd Cong., 1st sess., vol. 3, 158.

  55 Julius Grodinsky Railroad Consolidation: Its Economics and Controlling Principles (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1930), 29–31; Alfred D. Chandler Jr., ed., The Railroads; The Nation's First Big Business: Sources and Readings (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1965), 10, 159–60.

  56 Irene D. Neu, Erastus Corning: Merchant and Financier, 1794–1872 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1960), 1–13, 43, 161–4; Harlow, 19, 112; Hungerford, 72–3, 93; NYT, April 10, 1872; JMD to EC, February 1, 1867, fold. 3, box 89, CV to EC, September 15, 1863, HFC to EC, September 21, 1863, fold. 3, box 82, ECP.

  57 Strong, 3:416; Fowler, 178; Smith, 252–3. See also RGD, NYC 349:983, which notes Jerome was considered to be of good character, “& reputed very strong.”

  58 Jay Gould to EC, November 28, 1863, fold. 7, box 38, Watts Sherman to EC, October 22, 1863, fold. 3, box 82, ECP; Directors' Minutes, October 20, 1863, HR, oversize vol. 247, NYCRR; Neu, Corning, 173–4. For an example of a nearly contemporary HR complaint to the NYC, see Samuel Sloan to EC, March 17, 1864, copied in Executive Committee Minutes, March 24, 1864, HR, oversize vol. 249, and cited in Directors' Minutes, March 18, 1864, NYC, vol. 3, box 34, NYCRR.

  59 CV to EC, November 12, 1863, fold. 7, box 38, Watts Sherman to EC, December 7, 1863, fold. 2, box 39, ECP; Smith, 379.

  60 Watts Sherman to EC, October 22, 1863, fold. 3, box 82; JHB to EC, November 11, 19, 1863, CV to EC, November 12, 1863, fold. 7, box 38; all in ECP. See also Corning's testimony in NYSAD 19, 90th sess., 1867.

  61 NYH, November 19, 1863, in NYT, November 28, 1863. Jerome, who owned a controlling interest in NYT, appears t
o have pushed it to attack the Central's management, calling it the Democratic ring that ran New York (see Jay Gould to EC, November 28, 1863, JHB to EC, fold. 7, box 38, ECP). The notion that the Central under EC and Richmond “was itself the Democratic political organization,” as argued by Thomas C. Cochran, Railroad Leaders, 1845–1890: The Business Mind in Action (New York: Russell & Russell, 1965, orig. pub. 1953), 25, is a historical truism that deserves reexamination. Unquestionably EC and Richmond were leaders of the state's Democratic Party, and used their power in the railroad to gain influence. But even cynical contemporaries admitted that they did not control the government. See, for example, the Nation, April 18, 1867. And John V. L. Pruyn objected to directors being chosen because of their political affiliations (in this case, Republican); see entry for November 10, 1864, John V. L. Pruyn Journal, box 2, John V. L. Pruyn Papers, NYSL.

  62 CV to EC, November 20, 1863, fold., box 38, ECP.

  63 JHB to EC, November 20, 1863, fold. 7, box 38, Leonard W. Jerome to CV enclosed in CV to EC, December 5, 1863, fold. 2, box 39, ECP.

  64 NYT, December 3, 1863.

  65 CT, December 8, 1863; NYT, December 9, 1863; NYH, December 9, 1863.

  66 NYH, December 13, 1863; entry for December 11, 1863, Pruyn Journal; Richard M. Schell to EC, December 11, 1863, fold. 2, box 39, ECP.

  67 CV to EC, December 25, 1863, fold. 2, box 39, ECP; Neu, Erastus Corning, 177–8. In relation to this, see CV to Samuel L. M. Barlow, March 6, 1860, BW box 36 (14), Samuel L. M. Barlow Collection, HL.

  68 For a precise description of 10 Washington Place, see NYT, January 5, 1877. In the 1870 U.S. census, CV had five servants resident at 10 Washington Place, all born in Ireland.

  69 This account of CVs golden wedding celebration is from NYTr, December 21, 1863, and Memorial of the Golden Wedding of Cornelius and Sophia Vanderbilt, December 19, 1863 (New York: Baker & Godwin, 1864), copy in Duke. The Memorial identifies Ann S. Stephens as the author of the Tribune story.

  70 Smith, 409; RGD, NYC 343:316; Certificate of Incorporation, November 27, 1863, Certificate of Increase of the Capital Stock, October 5, 1866, Atlantic Mail Steamship Company, NYCC. Allen and Garrison did not appear as the original incorporators; they were JHB, Edward A. Quintard (Charles Morgan's son-in-law), Edward Mott Robinson, Samuel G. Wheeler, Charles A. Gould, and William Barton Allen (son of Daniel Allen). Once in operation, both Allen and Cornelius Garrison served as directors, with their headquarters at 5 Bowling Green, CVs old office. See also CT, July 20, 1864. On Osgood, see Smith, 409; NYT, May 4, 1867; NYH, March 19, 1868.

  71 NYTr, December 21, 1863.

  72 NYS, December 19, 22, 1877; NYH, December 27, 1877, in Vanderbilt Will Trial Case Clippings, NYPL; NYTr, March 13, 18, 1878; Ellen W. Vanderbilt to HG, March 19, 1868, reel 2, HGP. It appears that CJV had bad checks outstanding that very evening; see HG to Hanson A. Risley, March 27, 1864, Hanson A. Risley Papers, Duke. Note also that he had resumed his practice of befriending leading politicians, notably Schuyler Colfax, who became speaker of the house in 1863, with CJV claiming to have helped secure him the post; Willard H. Smith, Schuyler Colfax: The Changing Fortunes of a Political Idol (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Bureau, 1952), 182–5.

  73 NYS, December 9, 1885; NYSAD 75, 84th sess., 1861; NYSAD 175, 86th sess., 1863; NYSAD 125, 87th sess., 1864. In 1863, WHV owned five carriages and 160 ounces of silver plate, indications of his prosperity; Annual List, May 1, 1863, Collection District 1, Division 21, New York, New York, District 1: Annual Lists, 1862–3, roll 38, Internal Revenue Assessment Lists for New York and New Jersey, 1862–1866, Microfilm Publication M603, NA. He had no income listed, suggesting he earned the bulk of his income through corporate dividends, which were taxed at the source.

  74 Memorial of the Golden Wedding; NYTr, January 5, 1877; Dorothy Kelly MacDowell, Commodore Vanderbilt and His Family: A Biographical Account of the Descendants of Cornelius and Sophia Johnson Vanderbilt (n.p., 1989), 22.

  75 NYS, December 9, 1885; NYT, February 4, 1864. January 1, 1864, is usually stated as George's death date. The NYT report on George's funeral gives December 31; as it was the account closest in time to the event, and had other telling details, I am accepting December 31.

  76 NYT, February 4, 1864; NYS, December 15, 1877; NYTr, November 2, 1878; NYH, March 5, 1879; Frontis, Directors' Minutes, HR, oversize vol. 248, NYCRR; NYSAD 19, 90th sess., 1867; NYS, December 9, 1885.

  77 SED 46, 39th Cong., 1st sess., vol. 2.

  78 NYSAD 19, 90th sess., 1867; CT, February 25, 1866. James A. Ward discusses the nation-state metaphor for railroads in Railroads and the Character of America, 1820–1851 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1986).

  79 A mysterious bill to consolidate the Harlem and the New York Central drove this commentary; NYT, February 6, 1864; RT, February 13, 1864; NYH, February 25, 1864.

  80 Directors' Minutes, January 27, 1864, HRR, reel 26, box 242, NYCRR; J. C. Buckhout to CV, February 11, 1864, Engineer's Office Letterbook, HRR, 1864, box 19, NYCRR; RT, May 14, 1864; NYT, April 16, 1864, March 19, 1866; Lane, 208–15; Alvin F. Harlow, The Road of the Century: The Story of the New York Central (New York: Creative Age Press, 1947), 164, 180. Harlow argues that CVs action in participating in the creation of the Athens railroad was “inexplicable.” It makes perfect sense, however, if CV was not yet the hidden power in the HR when the Athens project was conceived.

  81 Smith, 265–7; Fowler, 162–4; RGD, NYC 265:237.

  82 Executive Committee Minutes, April 11, 1863, HR, oversize vol. 249; Directors' Minutes, June 8, 1863, HR, oversize vol. 247; both NYCRR.

  83 The basic story told by Clews, 107–9, appeared much earlier in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, April 1865. In Harper's, however, the management of the Hudson corner was contrasted with CVs handling of the Harlem corners, rather than attributed to CV himself.

  84 Clews, 107–9; NYSAD 19, 90th sess., 1867. Even Lane, 208–11, who readily accepts most of Clews's anecdotes, expresses doubts about CVs role in the HR corner. Tellingly, CV abandoned the double-tracking of the HR after he took control of the HRR.

  85 NYH, October 19, 30, 1863; Lane, 195. It is clear from NYH, September 7, 1863, that the purchase of the stage lines had never been effected.

  86 Directors' Minutes, March 12, 1864, HRR, reel 26, box 242, NYCRR; NYT, March 17, 1864; NYH, March 25, 26, April 30, 1864; Lane, 195–6.

  87 Browder, 66.

  88 NYH, April 21, 1864; Lane, 194–8. Fowler, 350–4, not only claims that Drew was a bear in Harlem, but also provides an excellent account of calls. Browder, 103–6, agrees that Drew took a bear position in Harlem in 1864.

  89 Fowler, 351. See also Clews, 107–9; BM, May 1864.

  90 CT, April 9, 1864; Zion's Herald and Wesleyan Journal, April 13, 1864; Strong, 3:430. On the Sanitary Commission, see McPherson, 480–3.

  91 Fowler, 284–6; NYT, April 16, 1864.

  92 NYH, April 17, 19, 21, 1864; EP in CT, April 23, 1864; NYT, April 22, 1864; Medbery 241; Fowler, 71–4, 260, 354, 364–5; Robert P. Sharkey Money, Class, and Party: An Economic Study of Civil War and Reconstruction (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1959), 51–2. For a recollection of the impact of Chase's act on the corner, see NYTr, August 5, 1876.

  93 NYH, April 30, May 15, June 3, 1864; NYT, May 5, 12, 18, 1864. See also the reminiscences of a Wall Street insider, NYTr, August 5, 1876. Lane, 196–8, repeats Clews's fanciful version, complete with dialogue that may be regarded as fiction. Medbery 159–60, gives an excellent description of the workings of a corner, explicitly citing this one as an example.

  94 Lane, 198–9; NYT, April 22, 23, May 18, 1864; NYH, April 30, 1864; Fowler, 355–6. It will be noted that I am relying more freely on Fowler, even though, like Clews, his version of events necessarily relied on rumor. Fowler wrote much sooner after the events quoted, and was generally far more reliable than Clews. Still, I give credence to his account only when he offers personal information or is confirmed by other sources.

  95 Clews, 116.

/>   96 Directors' Minutes, May 17, 18, 1864, HRR, reel 26, box 242, NYCRR.

  97 Directors' Minutes, June 13, 14, 1864, HR, oversize vol. 247; Executive Committee Minutes, June 14, July 6, 1864, HR, oversize vol. 249; all NYCRR.

  98 CT, July 20, 1864; United States Service Magazine, August 1864. On July 1, Congress ceased to pay CV for mail service to California; SED 44, 41st Cong., 3rd sess., vol. 1.

  99 NYH, May 2, 1878; Smith, 178–85.

  100 NYT, July 9, 1865, June 26, 1866; CT, August 12, 1866; Smith, 180.

  101 CT, September 6, 1860, September 23, 1866; PS, August 11, 1864; NYT, July 9, 1865; Smith, 183. Lane, 199, and Medbery, 163–4, claim that Morrissey went against CV in the second Harlem corner; Fowler, 355, says the opposite. Fowler seems more likely to be right. NYT, July 9, 1865, reports that the Saratoga track, with CV as a key backer, was in operation with Morrissey as a manager in 1864, hinting that Morrissey's attempt to ingratiate himself with CV dated to the aftermath of the first Harlem corner.

  102 NYS, December 22, 1877.

  103 HG to Hanson A. Risley February 16, March 27, 1864, Hanson A. Risley Papers, Duke.

  104 CJV to HG, September 7, 1864, reel 2, HGP.

  105 HG to Abraham Lincoln, September 21, 1864, Abraham Lincoln Papers, LOC. HG was correct that CV was a leading purchaser of federal bonds; see, for example, a report of his purchase of $300,000 in 5–20 bonds in early 1865, HED 52, 39th Cong., 2nd sess., vol. 8.

  106 HG to William P. Fessenden, October 4, 1864, HG, E. D. Morgan et al. to William P. Fessenden, October 10, 1864, HG to William P. Fessenden, December 1, 1864, Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, NYHS; HG to Hanson A. Risley October 12, Hanson A. Risley Papers, Duke.

  107 HG to Abraham Lincoln, November 23, 1864, Abraham Lincoln Papers, LOC.

  108 Directors' Minutes, September 6, October 4, 1864, HR, oversize vol. 247, NYCRR.

  109 Medbery 161–2, gives a story circulating in Wall Street in 1870 that CV had tested WHV by trying to trick him into short-selling Hudson River stock at a time when he was planning to drive the price up; WHV, however, saw through the ploy, and purchased Hudson River instead. Though Lane tells the tale as well, it was simply one more rumor circulating around CV There is no good evidence that he tried to undercut his son, on whom he increasingly relied.