Cornelius Vanderbilt

May 27, 1794 (age 82)

New York City, New York, United States

Vanderbilt started helping his father, who was carrying various cargo from Staten Island to Manhattan. After learning enough about ships, Vanderbilt felt he can start his own business, so he decided to get his own periauger when he was 16. According to one version, his mother lent him $100 so he can acquire it but it is far more probable that the boat was owned by his father, whom he had to pay half of his profits. Immediately after acquiring his first boat, Vanderbilt began transporting passengers and cargo between Manhattan and Staten Island. He decided to work hard and charge low, which turned out to be a great move since he made a significant profit in his first year of transporting. He was so diligent that people started calling him "The Commodore", which is a nickname he will be famous for the rest of his life. Rough in manners, he developed a reputation for honesty. The War of 1812 created new opportunities for expansion, and Vanderbilt received a contract to supply the forts around New York. The large profits from this allowed him to build a schooner that traveled over Long Island Sound and two more vessels for the coastwise trade. When he managed to land a contract with the government to supply several forts on the lines of Upper Bay in 1812, his business really hit off. By 1817, he had a fleet of five ships that transported people and cargo from Boston to Delaware Bay and he possessed $9, 000 besides his interest in the sailing vessels. Apparently well on the way to fame and fortune, in 1818 Vanderbilt sold all his interests and turned his attention to steamboats. Observing the success of Robert Fulton and Robert R. Livingston with vessels on the Hudson River, Vanderbilt correctly chose the wave of the future. When Thomas Gibbons, an entrepreneur that owned a steamboat between New York and New Jersey, asked him to become the business manager of his "Union Line" in 1818, Vanderbilt accepted, keeping his company working as usual. Working for $1, 000 a year, Vanderbilt made the line profitable, despite opposition from Fulton and Livingston, who claimed a legal monopoly on the Hudson River traffic. The new task wasn’t easy because Gibbons wasn’t operating legally, he was willingly violating monopoly that the State of New York gave to Aaron Ogden. After battling for years, Gibbons and Vanderbilt managed to break the monopoly after the United States Supreme Court made a decision in their favor in 1824. The Union Line soon grew up to make more than $40,000 profit per year. When Gibbons died in 1827, Vanderbilt decided to pull out of business because of the unwillingness to become a partner of Gibbons’ son and the inability to buy the Union Line. However, using the fact that interstate commerce is not under monopoly, Vanderbilt started the Dispatch line between Philadelphia and New York. He became a direct competitor of the Union Line and someone who was becoming a big threat, so the Union Line bought him out in 1830. This was a pattern that Vanderbilt used a couple more times – investing in modern shipping facilities, establishing profitable lines, and selling the business to a competing line. By making smart business moves, Vanderbilt managed to increase his net worth to over $1 million by the 1840s. This was only the beginning. When gold was discovered in California, Vanderbilt decided to advance to ocean-going steamships. He started the Accessory Transit Company that transferred passengers through Nicaragua, which was a much faster way than through Panama. However, in 1852 he had an argument with Joseph L. White, one of his partners, Vanderbilt left the company but only after his ships were bought out at a very high price. He decided to take a vacation and take his family on a cruise around Europe with his steamship boat. In the meantime, White betrayed him after conspiring with Charles Morgan and Vanderbilt was denied any money for the ships he gave to the Accessory Transit Company. He reacted quickly and started a rival line to California, offering significantly lower prices and soon making White and Morgan pay him off. This enabled Vanderbilt to make a new transatlantic line. His competition was the Collins Line, who was significantly subsidized but he managed to force them out of business. He also bought a big shipyard and a major marine steam engine manufacturer located in Manhattan. When his capital grew enough, he started buying stocks of the Accessory Transit Company in an attempt to regain power. He eventually managed to do this and develop a monopoly in the business of California steamship. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Vanderbilt played a great role by donating his biggest steamship to the Union Navy. He decided to focus on the railroad business, with which he had some experience as he was the president of the Stonington Railroad earlier. He was a part of the Erie Railway’s board of directors, which was widely known as the Harlem, and soon gained control over it, trying to make it profitable. Its biggest advantage was that it went through the center of Manhattan. In order to focus on the railroad business, Vanderbilt sold all his ships. By 1864, he had retired from shipping, having amassed nearly $30 million in wealth. At age 70, Vanderbilt turned his attention more closely to railroads, acquiring the New York & Harlem and Hudson Line (which ran along the Erie Canal), and then going after the New York Central Railroad. In a ruthless act during a bitter winter when the Erie Canal was frozen over, he refused to accept Central’s passengers or freight, cutting them off from connections to western cities. Forced to capitulate, the Central Railroad sold Vanderbilt controlling interest, and he eventually consolidated his hold on rail traffic from New York City to Chicago. This new conglomerate revolutionized rail operations by standardizing procedures and timetables, increasing efficiency, and decreasing travel and shipment times. During the 19th century, as rapid developments in technology and innovation enveloped society, many Americans sought meaningful forms of spiritual expression. Some gravitated to more traditional religions while others became fascinated with the occult. After his wife’s death in 1868, Vanderbilt sought the help of the Chaplin sisters, two mediums who claimed they could bring forth the spirits of the deceased. His family however was not impressed and feared their father would fall victim to charlatans. They introduced him to a distant female cousin, Frank Armstrong (so named due to a promise her parents made to name their first child after a family friend), his junior by decades, who became his second wife. By 1870, they bought the Hudson River Railroad, the New York Central Railroad, Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway, and the Canada Southern. This made it much easier to connect lines and Vanderbilt merged the Hudson River Railroad and the New York Central into a single corporation, making it one of the first giants in the history of the United States. In 1871, Vanderbilt financed a monument to his empire: the Grand Central Depot. The terminal for the New York Central Railroad was constructed with features like elevated platforms, a glass balloon roof spanning all of the tracks, and boarding areas only accessible to the passengers. At the city’s insistence, the tracks were submerged below street level to reduce noise and smoke. Vanderbilt majorly transformed the railroad system. Instead of numerous short railroads, in 1873 he was able to offer long rides, such as the one from New York to Chicago.

Cornelius Vanderbilt Edit Profile

also known as The Commodore

Businessman philanthropist

Background

Cornelius Vanderbilt was born on May 27, 1794, into a rather poor family in Staten Island, New York City, New York, the United States, to Cornelius van der Bilt, an illiterate farmed and a seaman, and Phebe Hand. Cornelius’s ancestors emigrated to the United States in the 17th century from the Dutch village called De Bilt. The Dutch prefix "van der" (of the) was added to the village name and then condensed into the surname Vanderbilt.

Vanderbilt was the fourth of nine children in his family. He had many siblings but most of them died at a young age. His father had a boat business, and as a youngster, Vanderbilt grew to love the sea and sailing. His father instilled in him a blunt, straightforward demeanor, and his mother, frugality and hard work.

Education

Ever since his early years, Cornelius was taught to take care of himself. This is how Vanderbilt learned to fight and survive on the street but also to be hard-working. As his family was poor, he couldn’t afford to educate himself so he decided to quit school when he was 11.

Career

Vanderbilt started helping his father, who was carrying various cargo from Staten Island to Manhattan. After learning enough about ships, Vanderbilt felt he can start his own business, so he decided to get his own periauger when he was 16. According to one version, his mother lent him $100 so he can acquire it but it is far more probable that the boat was owned by his father, whom he had to pay half of his profits.

Immediately after acquiring his first boat, Vanderbilt began transporting passengers and cargo between Manhattan and Staten Island. He decided to work hard and charge low, which turned out to be a great move since he made a significant profit in his first year of transporting. He was so diligent that people started calling him "The Commodore", which is a nickname he will be famous for the rest of his life.

Rough in manners, he developed a reputation for honesty. The War of 1812 created new opportunities for expansion, and Vanderbilt received a contract to supply the forts around New York. The large profits from this allowed him to build a schooner that traveled over Long Island Sound and two more vessels for the coastwise trade.

When he managed to land a contract with the government to supply several forts on the lines of Upper Bay in 1812, his business really hit off. By 1817, he had a fleet of five ships that transported people and cargo from Boston to Delaware Bay and he possessed $9, 000 besides his interest in the sailing vessels.

Apparently well on the way to fame and fortune, in 1818 Vanderbilt sold all his interests and turned his attention to steamboats. Observing the success of Robert Fulton and Robert R. Livingston with vessels on the Hudson River, Vanderbilt correctly chose the wave of the future. When Thomas Gibbons, an entrepreneur that owned a steamboat between New York and New Jersey, asked him to become the business manager of his "Union Line" in 1818, Vanderbilt accepted, keeping his company working as usual. Working for $1, 000 a year, Vanderbilt made the line profitable, despite opposition from Fulton and Livingston, who claimed a legal monopoly on the Hudson River traffic.

The new task wasn’t easy because Gibbons wasn’t operating legally, he was willingly violating monopoly that the State of New York gave to Aaron Ogden. After battling for years, Gibbons and Vanderbilt managed to break the monopoly after the United States Supreme Court made a decision in their favor in 1824. The Union Line soon grew up to make more than $40,000 profit per year. When Gibbons died in 1827, Vanderbilt decided to pull out of business because of the unwillingness to become a partner of Gibbons’ son and the inability to buy the Union Line.

However, using the fact that interstate commerce is not under monopoly, Vanderbilt started the Dispatch line between Philadelphia and New York. He became a direct competitor of the Union Line and someone who was becoming a big threat, so the Union Line bought him out in 1830. This was a pattern that Vanderbilt used a couple more times – investing in modern shipping facilities, establishing profitable lines, and selling the business to a competing line. By making smart business moves, Vanderbilt managed to increase his net worth to over $1 million by the 1840s.

This was only the beginning. When gold was discovered in California, Vanderbilt decided to advance to ocean-going steamships. He started the Accessory Transit Company that transferred passengers through Nicaragua, which was a much faster way than through Panama. However, in 1852 he had an argument with Joseph L. White, one of his partners, Vanderbilt left the company but only after his ships were bought out at a very high price.

He decided to take a vacation and take his family on a cruise around Europe with his steamship boat. In the meantime, White betrayed him after conspiring with Charles Morgan and Vanderbilt was denied any money for the ships he gave to the Accessory Transit Company. He reacted quickly and started a rival line to California, offering significantly lower prices and soon making White and Morgan pay him off.

This enabled Vanderbilt to make a new transatlantic line. His competition was the Collins Line, who was significantly subsidized but he managed to force them out of business. He also bought a big shipyard and a major marine steam engine manufacturer located in Manhattan. When his capital grew enough, he started buying stocks of the Accessory Transit Company in an attempt to regain power. He eventually managed to do this and develop a monopoly in the business of California steamship.

When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Vanderbilt played a great role by donating his biggest steamship to the Union Navy. He decided to focus on the railroad business, with which he had some experience as he was the president of the Stonington Railroad earlier. He was a part of the Erie Railway’s board of directors, which was widely known as the Harlem, and soon gained control over it, trying to make it profitable. Its biggest advantage was that it went through the center of Manhattan. In order to focus on the railroad business, Vanderbilt sold all his ships.

By 1864, he had retired from shipping, having amassed nearly $30 million in wealth. At age 70, Vanderbilt turned his attention more closely to railroads, acquiring the New York & Harlem and Hudson Line (which ran along the Erie Canal), and then going after the New York Central Railroad. In a ruthless act during a bitter winter when the Erie Canal was frozen over, he refused to accept Central’s passengers or freight, cutting them off from connections to western cities. Forced to capitulate, the Central Railroad sold Vanderbilt controlling interest, and he eventually consolidated his hold on rail traffic from New York City to Chicago. This new conglomerate revolutionized rail operations by standardizing procedures and timetables, increasing efficiency, and decreasing travel and shipment times.

During the 19th century, as rapid developments in technology and innovation enveloped society, many Americans sought meaningful forms of spiritual expression. Some gravitated to more traditional religions while others became fascinated with the occult. After his wife’s death in 1868, Vanderbilt sought the help of the Chaplin sisters, two mediums who claimed they could bring forth the spirits of the deceased. His family however was not impressed and feared their father would fall victim to charlatans. They introduced him to a distant female cousin, Frank Armstrong (so named due to a promise her parents made to name their first child after a family friend), his junior by decades, who became his second wife.

By 1870, they bought the Hudson River Railroad, the New York Central Railroad, Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway, and the Canada Southern. This made it much easier to connect lines and Vanderbilt merged the Hudson River Railroad and the New York Central into a single corporation, making it one of the first giants in the history of the United States.

In 1871, Vanderbilt financed a monument to his empire: the Grand Central Depot. The terminal for the New York Central Railroad was constructed with features like elevated platforms, a glass balloon roof spanning all of the tracks, and boarding areas only accessible to the passengers. At the city’s insistence, the tracks were submerged below street level to reduce noise and smoke. Vanderbilt majorly transformed the railroad system. Instead of numerous short railroads, in 1873 he was able to offer long rides, such as the one from New York to Chicago.

Achievements

In 1870, Vanderbilt consolidated two of his key lines into the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad, one of the first giant corporations in the history of America. His acquisition of the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern railway provided the first thorough rail service between New York and Chicago. Subsequently, he acquired numerous railroads, giving rise to the largest American railway transportation system of the time.

In 1999, Vanderbilt became an inductee of the North America Railway Hall of Fame, for his significant contributions to the railroad industry.

Today, it is estimated that Vanderbilt would have been worth more than $200 billion if calculating his wealth with the nation’s gross domestic product in 1877. This would make him the second wealthiest person in American history after Standard Oil co-founder John D. Rockefeller.

Religion

While most of the Vanderbilt family were the part of the Episcopal Church, Cornelius Vanderbilt was a member of the Moravian Church to his death.

Politics

During the Civil War, Vanderbilt donated his biggest steamship to the Union Navy. This didn’t happen at the beginning of the war when the government rejected his donation but rather in 1863. Abraham Lincoln, the president of the United States at the time, wrote personally to Vanderbilt to ask him for the ship.

Views

Many sources claim that Vanderbilt was a generous philanthropist but that is far from the truth. If you don’t count the donation of his biggest ship to the Union Navy during the Civil War, Vanderbilt didn’t donate a penny until his later years. It was only when he married his second wife that he decided to buy a church for her congregation. The value of the donation was $50,000.

The biggest donation that Vanderbilt gave was to follow in 1873. His second wife was a cousin of a bishop Holland Nimmons McTyeire and they managed to convince him to donate $1,000,000 to McTyeire so he can found a university. This university will become known as the Vanderbilt Univesity. It was the largest charitable gift in American history till that date. He also donated large sums of money to the churches.

He lived below his means and avoided debt Vanderbilt inherited this trait from his mother - spending less than you earn and then saving and investing the difference. He controlled his money, investing, and spending it wisely while looking for value in every dollar he spent. Vanderbilt grew his empire without debt. He never borrowed money. Almost until the day he died, he as never accepted by the wealthy class because he never flaunted his money or his wealth.

Although he was married twice, Vanderbilt didn’t think highly of women. This can be best seen from his will, where he left an incredibly small amount of money to his daughters and his second wife, giving most of the wealth to his oldest son Billy, who he deemed fit to be the only one capable of enlarging the fortunes.

Quotations: "If I had learned education I would not have had time to learn anything else"

"I have been insane on the subject of moneymaking all my life."

"You have undertaken to cheat me. I won't sue you, for the law is too slow. I'll ruin you."

Personality

Vanderbilt started working as a teenager and was a very diligent man who was completely dedicated to business. There, he was ruthless, and his only goal and the biggest concern was moneymaking. Despite that, he led a quite modest life-giving his enormous wealth.

Vanderbilt embraced new technologies, such as the steamboat, and a new form of business, such as the corporation. He was not afraid to take calculated risks. Toward the end of his life, he even put his entire estate at risk in an effort to save one of his many investments: The Union Trust.

Vanderbilt also loved to compete. He battled his rivals as if at war, slashing fares and doing what he could to drive them out of business. Vanderbilt never quit on his dreams. Several times, this would put him on the brink of personal bankruptcy. But he was persistent and unrelenting.

Vanderbilt was a light eater, did not drink alcohol, and was physically active all of his life. Vanderbilt was often described as the calm in the storm. He never panicked and was always in complete control of his emotions, especially during the most turbulent of times. Vanderbilt would often vacation or relax in Saratoga Springs every year. It helped him to clear his head and recharge his batteries. As a result of his good habits, he remained healthy until the last year of his life.

Physical Characteristics: Vanderbilt started going bald when he was very young and his trademarks became his beard and his long sideburns. He would always wear a suit and he dressed completely in accordance with the fact that he was a successful entrepreneur.

Quotes from others about the person

"If he had learned anything from his parents, he learned that business was a matter of relationships." - T. J. Stiles

Interests

Philosophers & Thinkers

Holland Nimmons McTyeire
Politicians

Abraham Lincoln

Connections

Vanderbilt was married twice. The first time was in 1813 when he married Sophia Johnson, his first cousin. They had a total of 13 children together, eight daughters and five sons. After Sophia died, Vanderbilt remarried in 1869 to Frank Armstrong Crawford, who was also his cousin.

Father:: Cornelius van der Bilt
Mother:: Phebe Hand
Spouse:: Frank Armstrong Crawford
Sister:: Mary Polly Vanderbilt Simonson
Sister:: Charlotte Vanderbilt Egbert
Brother:: Jacob Hand Vanderbilt
Sister:: Jane Vanderbilt Barton
Sister:: Eleanora Vanderbilt
Sister:: Phebe Vanderbilt
late spouse:: Sophia Johnson
Daughter:: Phebe Jane Vanderbilt Cross
Daughter:: Ethelinda Vanderbilt Allen
Daughter:: Eliza Matilda Vanderbilt Osgood
Son:: William Henry Vanderbilt
Daughter:: Emily Almira Vanderbilt Thorn
Daughter:: Sophia Johnson Vanderbilt Torrance
Daughter:: Maria Louisa Vanderbilt Niven
Daughter:: Frances Lavinia Vanderbilt
Son:: Cornelius Jeremiah Vanderbilt
Son:: George Washington Vanderbilt, I
Daughter:: Mary Alicia Vanderbilt La Bau
Daughter:: Catherine Juliette Vanderbilt Lafitte
Son:: George Washington Vanderbilt
Mistress:: Lady Tennessee Celeste Claflin, Viscountess of Montserrat

Main Photo