Everything about Cornelius Vanderbilt totally explained
Cornelius Vanderbilt (
May 27 1794 –
January 4 1877), also known by the
sobriquets
The Commodore or
Commodore Vanderbilt, was an
American entrepreneur who built his wealth in
shipping and
railroads and was the patriarch of the
Vanderbilt family.
Cornelius Vanderbilt and Phebe Hand had a family of modest means in
Port Richmond on
Staten Island.
His great-great-great-grandfather, Jan Aertson, was a Dutch farmer from the village of
De Bilt in
Utrecht, the
Netherlands, who immigrated to New York as an
indentured servant in
1650. The Dutch
van der ("of the") was eventually added to Aertson's village name to create "van der bilt", which was eventually condensed to Vanderbilt. Most of Vanderbilt's ancestry was English, with his last ancestor of Dutch origin being Jacob Vanderbilt, his grandfather. Cornelius Vanderbilt engaged in the steamship and then railroad industries. His company name was the
Accessory Transit Company.
On
December 19 1813, Cornelius Vanderbilt married his cousin and neighbor, Sophia Johnson (1795-1868), daughter of his aunt Elizabeth Hand Johnson. He and his wife had 13 children, 1 died in childhood.
Vanderbilt University in
Nashville,
Tennessee, is named for Cornelius, and the university's mascot is the commodore.
Ferry empire
As a young boy, Cornelius Vanderbilt worked on
ferries in and around
New York, quitting school at age 11. By age 16 he was operating his own business—after having borrowed money from his mother—ferrying freight and passengers between Staten Island and Manhattan. During the
War of 1812, he received a government contract to supply the
forts around New York City. He operated sailing
schooners, which is where he gained his nickname of "Commodore."
In 1818, he turned his attention to
steamships. The New York
legislature had granted
Robert Fulton and
Robert Livingston a thirty-year
legal monopoly on steamboat traffic. Working for Thomas Gibbons, Vanderbilt undercut the prices charged by Fulton and Livingston for service between
New Brunswick, New Jersey, and
Manhattan—an important link in trade between New York and
Philadelphia. During this period, his wife, Sophia Vanderbilt, operated a very profitable inn and tavern near the New Jersey mooring, adding significantly to the early family fortune.
Vanderbilt avoided capture by those who sought to arrest him and impound the ship. Livingston and Fulton offered Vanderbilt a lucrative job piloting their steamboat, but Vanderbilt rejected the offer. He said "I don't care half so much about making money as I do about making my point, and coming out ahead." For Vanderbilt, the point was the superiority of free competition over the
government-granted monopoly. Livingston and Fulton sued; the case went before the
United States Supreme Court and ultimately broke the Fulton-Livingston monopoly on trade.
In 1829, Vanderbilt struck out on his own to provide steam service on the
Hudson River between Manhattan and
Albany, New York. By the 1840s, he'd 100 steamships plying the Hudson and was reputed to have the most employees of any business in the United States.
During the 1849
California Gold Rush, he offered a shortcut via
Nicaragua to California—shaving 600 miles (960 km) at half the price of the
Isthmus of Panama shortcut.
In the 1850s Vanderbilt competed without direct government subsidy against the subsidized
Collins Line and
Cunard Line in the trans-Atlantic steamship market. See
Entrepreneurs and American Economic Growth
for an heroic view of this contest.
Railroad empire
Early rail interest
Vanderbilt's involvement with early railroad development led him to being involved in one of America's earliest rail accidents. On
November 11 1833, he was a passenger on a
Camden & Amboy train that derailed in the meadows near
Hightstown, New Jersey, when a coach car axle broke because of a hot journal box. He spent a month recovering from injuries that included two cracked ribs and a punctured lung. Uninjured in this accident was former
U.S. President John Quincy Adams, riding in the car ahead of the one that derailed. Adams's son was killed in the accident.
In
1844, Vanderbilt was elected as a director of the
Long Island Rail Road, which at the time provided a route between
Boston and New York City via a steamboat transfer.
(External Link) In
1857, he became a director of the
New York and Harlem Railroad.
(External Link)
New York Central Railroad
In the early 1860s, Vanderbilt started withdrawing capital from steamships and investing in railroads. He acquired the New York and Harlem Railroad in 1862-63, the
Hudson River Railroad in 1864, and the
New York Central Railroad in 1867. In 1869, they were merged into
New York Central and Hudson River Railroad.
Grand Central Depot
In October
1871, Vanderbilt struck up a partnership with the
New York and New Haven Railroad to join with the railroads he owned to consolidate operations at one terminal at East 42nd Street called Grand Central Depot, which was the original
Grand Central Terminal, where his statue reigns today. The glass roof of the depot collapsed during a blizzard on the same day Vanderbilt died in 1877. The station wasn't replaced until 1903-13.
Rivalry with Jay Gould
By
1873, he'd extended the lines to
Chicago, Illinois. Around this time Vanderbilt tried to gain control of the Erie Railroad, which brought him into direct conflict with
Jay Gould, who was then in control of the Erie. Gould won the battle for control of the railroad by "
watering down" its stock, which Vanderbilt bought in large amounts. Vanderbilt lost more than $7 million in his attempt to gain control, although Gould later returned most of the money.
Vanderbilt was very accustomed to getting what he wanted, but it seems that he met his match in Jay Gould. Vanderbilt would later say of his loss "never kick a skunk". In fact this wasn't the last time that Gould would serve to challenge a Vanderbilt. Years after his father's death, William Vanderbilt gained control of the Western Union Telegraph company. Jay Gould then started the American Telegraph Company and nearly forced
Western Union out of business. William Vanderbilt then had no choice but to buy out Gould, who made a large profit from the sale.
Vanderbilt legacy
Following his wife's death, Vanderbilt went to
Canada where, on
August 21 1869, he married a distant cousin from
Mobile, Alabama named Frank Armstrong Crawford. Crawford's great-grandfather, was a brother to Phebe Hand Vanderbilt (the Commodore's mother) and to Elizabeth Hand Johnson (the Commodore's former mother-in-law and maternal aunt). Crawford herself was 43 years younger than her husband-to-be. Her cousin,
Holland McTyeire, convinced Cornelius Vanderbilt to commit funding for what would become
Vanderbilt University.
Ruthless in business, Cornelius Vanderbilt was said by some to have made few friends in his lifetime but many enemies. In his will, he disowned all his sons except for William, who was as ruthless in business as his father and the only one Cornelius believed capable of maintaining the business empire.
At the time of his death, aged 82, Cornelius Vanderbilt's fortune was estimated at more than
US$100 million. He willed US$95 million to son William but "only" US$500,000 to each of his eight daughters. His wife received US$500,000 in cash, their modest New York City home, and 2,000 shares of common stock in New York Central Railroad.
Vanderbilt gave little of his vast fortune to charitable works, leaving the $1 million (the equivalent of $19 million today) he'd promised for Vanderbilt University and $50,000 to the Church of the Strangers in New York City. He lived modestly, leaving his descendants to build the
Vanderbilt houses that characterize America's
Gilded Age.
According to "The Wealthy 100" by Michael Klepper and Robert Gunther, Vanderbilt would be worth $143 billion in
2007 dollars, if you take his total wealth as a share of the nation's GDP in 1877 and apply that same proportion in 2007, making him the second-wealthiest person in American history after Rockefeller.
Vanderbilt is also heavily associated with the standardization of gauges and the use of steel in rails.
Descendants
Main article: Vanderbilt family
Cornelius Vanderbilt was buried in the family vault in the
Moravian Cemetery at
New Dorp on Staten Island. Three of his daughters and son, Cornelius Jeremiah Vanderbilt, contested the will on the grounds that their father had insane delusions and was of unsound mind. The unsuccessful court battle lasted more than a year, and Cornelius Jeremiah Vanderbilt committed
suicide in
1882.
Children of Cornelius Vanderbilt and Sophia Johnson:
- Phebe Jane (Vanderbilt) Cross (1814-1878)
- Ethelinda (Vanderbilt) Allen (1817-1889)
- Eliza (Vanderbilt) Osgood (1819-1890)
- William Henry Vanderbilt (1821-1885)
- Emily Almira (Vanderbilt) Thorn (1823-1896)
- Sophia Johnson (Vanderbilt) Torrance (1825-1912)
- Maria Louisa (Vanderbilt) Clark Niven (1827-1896)
- Frances Lavinia Vanderbilt (1828-1868)
- Cornelius Jeremiah Vanderbilt (1830-1882)
- Mary Alicia (Vanderbilt) LaBau Berger (1834-1902)
- Catherine Juliette (Vanderbilt) Barker LaFitte (1836-1881)
- George Washington Vanderbilt (1839-1864)
Railroads controlled by Vanderbilt
New York and Harlem Railroad (1863-)
Hudson River Railroad (1864-)
New York Central Railroad (1867-)
Canada Southern Railway (1873-) (External Link)
Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway (1873?-)
Michigan Central Railroad (1877-) (External Link)
New York, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad (Nickel Plate Road) (1882-)
West Shore Railroad (1885-)
Rome, Watertown and Ogdensburg Railroad
Dunkirk, Allegheny Valley and Pittsburgh Railroad
Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway
Lake Erie and Western Railroad
Pittsburgh and Lake Erie RailroadFurther Information
Get more info on 'Cornelius Vanderbilt'.
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