by T. J. Stiles
Second, Renehan has not allowed verification of his sources. I asked to examine his copy of the diaries, and offered to sign a written agreement to protect his right to first publication of any findings. He declined. When I asked the names of the owners, he refused to provide them. He claimed that he had promised each of them confidentiality an arrangement I had never heard of before with holders of historic papers. He promised to contact them for me, but told me they were all very old. I heard no more from him.
Claims based on unauthenticated papers cannot be considered information. The most basic scholarly standards require that sources be available for scrutiny and verification by independent parties before they can be accepted. Renehan has chosen to make that impossible.
Finally, Renehan's credibility has been impeached by subsequent developments. In 2008, he pleaded guilty to two felonies, a federal charge of transporting stolen property across state lines, and a New York State charge of third-degree grand larceny, and was sentenced to eighteen months in federal prison. These criminal convictions stemmed from the theft of letters written by George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt from the Theodore Roosevelt Association, during the period when Renehan was acting director of the organization. According to press reports, state and federal authorities believe that he forged a document to establish his ownership of the stolen letters, sold three of them through an auction house for nearly $100,000, and came under suspicion when he attempted to sell a fourth. (See Newsday, March 22, 27, April 21, June 14, September 20, 2008.) Renehan explained his conduct by claiming that he suffered from untreated bipolar disorder during this period, saying that he felt “invulnerable and answerable to no one.” (See Providence Journal, May 29, 2008; also New York Sun, June 23, 2008.) Though his crimes do not pertain directly to Commodore, he committed them at the time he was writing that book. Together with the untenable nature of his claims for his sources, his insistence on keeping them secret, and his own description of his state of mind, this affair raises serious doubts about these purported diaries.
THIS BOOK RELIES ON numerous manuscript collections, many of which have never been cited in a Vanderbilt biography before. I will review only a few of the most significant, beginning with Part One of this book.
I am convinced that no history of American business in the first half of the nineteenth century (and perhaps the second half as well) that touches in any way on New York can be written without consulting the Old Records Division of the New York County Clerk's Office, 31 Chambers Street, 7th floor. It was central not only to my discovery of raw facts about Vanderbilt and his friends and allies, but also to the portrait I paint of America's emerging economic culture. I happened upon it by accident, and ended up spending many months conducting research there. I was helped by the highly professional archivists, Joseph Van Nostrand, Bruce Abrams, David Brantley Robert Soenarie, Eileen McAleavey, and Annette Joseph, who have in their care the four-hundred-year legal history of New York City. Since legal papers find their way to the Old Records Division willy-nilly, the historian works alongside citizens in search of certified copies of divorce decrees from a few years before, lawyers seeking filings from long-running lawsuits, and the occasional private investigator. The papers I examined showed the inner workings of many of Vanderbilt's operations, from his takeover of the Staten Island Ferry in 1838 to conversations with angry passengers who had been stranded in Nicaragua. More than that, they revealed a time when insider trading, noncompetition deals, and market-division agreements were not only legal but sometimes enforced by the courts. Not all the documents are so rich; many are simple lawsuits over unpaid promissory notes. But it is worth the effort to find the gems.
Another essential collection, one that is already well known, is the Gibbons Family Papers at Drew University Madison, New Jersey. This collection includes the largest number of letters in Vanderbilt's own hand, many of which were not cited by Lane or subsequent writers. It also sheds light on the crumbling culture of deference, and the failure of Thomas Gibbons's son William to come to grips with the competitive culture that his father and Vanderbilt had contributed to so notably. This episode is also illuminated by the Livingston Family Papers at the New-York Historical Society (NYHS).
My exploration of Vanderbilt's move into Long Island Sound, and his consequent assumption of the presidency of the Stonington railroad, owes much to the Comstock Papers at the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts. But I relied in particular on the William D. Lewis Papers at the New York Public Library (NYPL). Lewis, an official of the Girard Bank of Philadelphia, was the trustee of the Stonington railroad, and often corresponded with its senior officers. It was a delight to read letters labeled “Burn This” or “Destroy Immediately”—a sign of the rare glimpse into the secret world of antebellum business afforded by these papers. They offer the most acute look at Vanderbilt in the 1830s and 1840s available (including a transcription of a conversation with him by the line's chief engineer), and illuminate the complex relationship between steamboat proprietors and early New England railroads.
In Part Two, covering Vanderbilt's Central America operations and Atlantic steamship line, I also drew heavily on the Old Records Division of the New York County Clerk's Office. I found invaluable the published correspondence of the State Department (as well as originals at the National Archives, College Park, Maryland) and the congressional reports that reprinted numerous primary sources related to the “transit question.” The William L. Marcy and John M. Clayton collections at the Library of Congress contain many important letters, not only from Vanderbilt but from Joseph L. White as well, a figure long overlooked in histories of this period. The Baring Brothers archive, on file in microfilm at the Library of Congress, was invaluable to my understanding of the fate of the Nicaragua canal project, and I am grateful to the ING corporation for granting me permission to view it. The archive of R. G. Dun & Co., Baker Library, Harvard Business School, proved equal to its great reputation. By looking up reports for many of Vanderbilt's businesses, relatives, allies, and enemies, I was able to develop a much fuller picture of both Vanderbilt and his contemporaries.
Two little-used sources in particular allowed me to write a substantially new account of the activities of Vanderbilt, Cornelius K. Garrison, and Charles Morgan during William Walker's rule of Nicaragua. First, the files of the Costa Rican Claims Convention, housed at the National Archives, College Park, contain eyewitness testimony about the final campaign that brought Walker down, as well as a copy of the lengthy deposition of Joseph N. Scott, taken from the lawsuit Murray v. Vanderbilt. Second, the papers of lawyer Isaiah Thornton Williams, NYPL, contain extensive depositions from the lawsuits that sprouted out of the collapse of the Nicaragua transit. These depositions contain everything from discussions of relative fuel costs of the transit routes to the nature of Garrison's and Vanderbilt's relationships with Walker. In addition, the papers of H. L. Bancroft, held by the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, include important documents, including William Walker's own deposition in one of the transit lawsuits and an invaluable interview with Lambert Wardell. The Williams Family Papers at Trinity College, Hartford, shed important new light on a long-disregarded side of Vanderbilt's personality, as he fondly corresponded, often in his own hand, with his daughter-in-law's family. Finally, the miscellaneous NYHS manuscripts relating to Vanderbilt add significant details.
For Part Three, various congressional reports reveal Vanderbilt's role in the Civil War, as do the Stanton Papers at the Library of Congress and the well-worn but still-essential Official Records of the War of the Rebellion. To follow Vanderbilt's career as he moved into railroads, the New York Central Railroad papers in the PennCentral Collection, NYPL, is irreplaceable. This collection includes the directors' minutes for all the railroads that would eventually make up the Vanderbilt system, as well as financial records that show Vanderbilt's personal support for his corporations' finances. (It also sheds light on Vanderbilt's e
arly involvement in railroads, as the minutes of the Long Island Railroad illustrate how his control of steamboats naturally led to his entrance onto the boards of connecting railways.)
The reports and testimony published by the New York State Assembly and Senate comprise another oft-cited but critical source. These prove particularly important for understanding Vanderbilt's relationship with the New York Central when he was head of the Harlem and Hudson River railroads. So, too, are the papers of Erastus Corning, Albany Institute of History and Art, Albany, New York. This rich collection builds an understanding of Vanderbilt as corporate diplomat. More than that, it includes many letters from John M. Davidson, a business partner of Corning's who played the stock market and mingled with such Tweed cronies as Judge Barnard, shedding abundant light on the dim world of Wall Street through 1870. Vanderbilt's notes to James H. Banker, NYHS, reveal his concern for secrecy when it came to the financial markets. The James F. Joy Papers, Detroit Public Library (with some copies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor), also offer insight into Vanderbilt's role as railroad chief, and are suggestive of how other railroad officials differentiated between the management styles of the Commodore and his son William. The Joy papers (along with those of Frank Crawford Vanderbilt) are the only case in which I was forced to resort to paid research assistants. I regret being unable to travel to conduct the research myself, and accept that much of importance may have been missed.
Some important collections also shed light on Vanderbilt's intimate world in the last period of his life. Frank Crawford Vanderbilt's letters, at the Detroit Public Library, and her diary, NYHS, paint a complex portrait of Vanderbilt as controlling, temperamental, and yet still loving. The many letters of Cornelius J. Vanderbilt and his wife, Ellen, to Horace Greeley, in the Greeley Papers, NYPL, illuminate the complicated relationship between the Commodore and his son. The Colt Family Papers, University of Rhode Island, contain the papers of George Terry, which include numerous letters from Cornelius J. Vanderbilt and legal documents related to his settlement with his brother William and his final bankruptcy. Numerous other collections, such as the Samuel J. Tilden Papers, NYPL, also offer occasional items that throw light on the Commodore as a man.
Finally, there is the abundant testimony of the Vanderbilt will case, much of it (but far from all) collected in scrapbooks and microfilm at NYPL. This is a treacherous source. Many of the witnesses and theories offered by the attorneys of Mary La Bau and Cornelius J. Vanderbilt were simply incredible. They claimed, for example, that William H. Vanderbilt hired someone to impersonate Corneil and engage in disreputable behavior. The notion is absurd, not because William was a saint, but because it was so unnecessary; and William proved willing to alter the will in the end. Unfortunately, the more outrageous claims of the testimony continue to color the imagination of writers who address the Commodore. So, too, do the self-serving assertions (and outright lies) told by Tennessee Claflin and Victoria Woodhull. I have found no evidence of Vanderbilt's business involvement with them (as opposed to medical or supernatural), except from the mouths of Woodhull and Claflin themselves. They were impressive individuals, no doubt—even admirable, as they brashly battled strictures on women. They were also veteran confidence artists who were pulling off the biggest con of their lives when they opened their “brokerage house,” which is not known to have conducted any business on Wall Street.
The testimony of magnetic healers and the declamations of Woodhull and Claflin need not be dismissed in their entirety (Vanderbilt did hire such healers, and he did have a friendship with the sisters, especially Claflin), but they need to be treated skeptically, with an insistence on more evidence. The image of the Commodore has been shaped by prejudice from the early years of his life—when he drew sneers for his claim to be a man of honor—to the present, when he is often dismissed as a brutal, uncharitable vulgarian. The prejudice is in itself interesting, but it is no substitute for investigation.
* General paresis is progressive, marked by wild behavioral aberrations and rapid loss of motor control. When untreated it leads to total paralysis and finally death within three or four years of its manifestation. Private letters, newspaper reports, and the directors' minutes of Vanderbilt's railroads show him to have been active, in character, and intelligent up to his final illness, often presiding at meetings where William H. Vanderbilt was not present. See Deborah Hay-den, Pox: Genius, Madness, and the Mysteries of Syphilis (New York: Basic Books, 2003), 29–37, 54–9, 317–8; Allan M. Brandt, No Magic Bullet: A Social History of Venereal Disease in the United States since 1880 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 9–13; Edward W. Hook III and Christina M. Marra, “Acquired Syphilis in Adults,” New England Journal of Medicine 326, no. 16 (April 16, 1992): 1060–9; Catherine M. Hutchinson and Edward W. Hook III, “Syphilis in Adults,” Medical Clinics of North America 74, no. 6 (November 1990): 1389–1454; Roger P. Simon, “Neurosyphilis,” Archives of Neurology 42, no. 6 (June 1985): 606–13; John H. Stokes, Modern Clinical Syphilology: Diagnosis, Treatment, Case Studies (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders, 1926), 906–7; Loyd [sic] Thompson, Syphilis (Philadelphia: Lea & Febriger, 1916), 58–9; H. Houston Merritt, Raymond D. Adams, and Harry C. Solomon, Neurosyphilis (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946), 3–4; D'Arcy Power and J. Keogh Murphy, eds., A System of Syphilis, vol. 4: Syphilis of the Nervous System (London: Oxford University Press, 1910), 259. For examples of William's travels to Europe, see Chicago Tribune, June 9, 1869, and the New York Times, July 4, 1872.
Notes
ABBREVIATIONS
(The following is not a complete list of sources cited in the notes.)
MANUSCRIPT COLLECTIONS
AAS American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass.
ATC Accessory Transit Company v. Cornelius K. Garrison, New York Superior Court, box 1, Isaiah Thornton Williams Papers, 1833–1918, Manuscript Division, New York Public Library
BB Baring Brothers Archive, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress
BL Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley
CRCC Costa Rican Claims Convention of July 2, 1860, RG 76, National Archives, College Park, Md.
CFP Comstock Family Papers, American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass.
CV-NYHS Cornelius Vanderbilt Papers, Misc. Manuscripts, New-York Historical Society
CV-NYPL Cornelius Vanderbilt Papers, Misc. Files, Manuscript Division, New York Public Library
Duke Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Duke University, Durham, N.C.
ECP Erastus Corning 1 Papers, Albany Institute for History and Art, Albany, NY.
EMSP Edwin M. Stanton Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress
GP Gibbons Family Papers, Archives and Special Collections, Drew University, Madison, N.J.
GP-R Gibbons Papers, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J.
HL Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif.
HGP Horace Greeley Papers, Manuscript Division, New York Public Library
Hone ms. Manuscript diary of Philip Hone, New-York Historical Society
JBP James Buchanan Papers, Microfilm Copy, Columbia University
JFJP James F. Joy Papers, Burton Hstorical Collection, Detroit Public Library
JFJP-2 James F. Joy Papers, Henry B. Joy Hstorical Research Collection, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
JMC-P John M. Clayton Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress
LFP Livingston Family Papers, New-York Hstorical Society
LOC Manuscript Division, Library of Congress
LW Dictation “Dictation Taken from the Lips of Lambert Wardell,” H. H. Bancroft Notes on the Vanderbilt Family, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley
MacDonald Lawsuit Charles J. MacDonald v. Cornelius K. Garrison and Charles Morgan, New York Court of Common Pleas, box 42, Isaiah Thornton Williams Papers, 1833–1918, Manuscript Division, New York Public Library
NA National Archives, Washington, D
.C
NA–CP National Archives, College Park, Md.
NP Neilson Papers, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J.
NYCC Old Records Division, New York County Clerk's Office, New York, N.Y
NYCRR New York Central Railroad Papers, PennCentral Collection, Manuscript Division, New York Public Library
NYHS New-York Historical Society
NYMA New York Municipal Archives
NYPL Manuscript Division, New York Public Library
NYSL Manuscripts and Special Collections, New York State Library