Background
Jayson Gould was born in Roxbury, New York, on May 27, 1836, the son of John Gould and Mary More.
At a young age he realized that farm work was not to his liking.
Jayson Gould was born in Roxbury, New York, on May 27, 1836, the son of John Gould and Mary More.
At a young age he realized that farm work was not to his liking.
He was brought up on his father's farm, studied at Hobart Academy, and though he left school in his sixteenth year, devoted himself assiduously thereafter to private study, chiefly of mathematics and surveying, at the same time keeping books for a blacksmith for his board.
Between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one he helped prepare maps of New York's southern counties.
At twenty-one Gould invested five thousand dollars, and he and a partner opened a business tanning leather in northern Pennsylvania. Gould then moved to New York City, where he became a leather merchant in 1860.
From 1867 to 1872 he was a power and a terror on Wall Street.
In 1867 Gould was already on the board of directors (the controlling committee of a company) of the Erie Railroad, which was having financial difficulties.
He set out to control the railroad and to push its lines westward as far as Chicago, Illinois, and to defeat industrialist Cornelius Vanderbilt's (1794–1877) effort to acquire this potential competitor.
In the "Erie war" with Vanderbilt in 1868, Gould issued one hundred thousand shares of new Erie stock, using illegal means.
He then went to Albany, New York, to bribe legislators to "legalize" the action.
Vanderbilt discovered he had met his match and settled, receiving $1 million and leaving the Erie Railroad to Gould. Gould then began to expand the Erie, which vastly increased its debt.
As part of the Erie's move westward, Gould obtained control of the Wabash, a railroad that carried wheat.
Then the U. S. Treasury, realizing that Gould had tricked it, started selling gold, and the price dropped significantly.
A panic hit Wall Street, sending the price of all stocks down.
Gould had speculated not only in gold but also in stocks and he lost a fortune.
His operations in the last two railroads demonstrate his methods well.
He also acquired the stocks of other, smaller railroads he wanted to add to the two main systems.
Then he forced up the prices of the two main railroads.
When the stock market recovered from 1879 to 1884, he sold the railroad stocks at prices far greater than what he had paid for them, making yet another large fortune.
Gould was forced out of the Wabash and the Union Pacific Railroads in the early 1886.
He then turned his complete attention to the Missouri Pacific Railroad (of which he had gained control in 1879) and built it into a great power.
From 1879 to 1882 Gould added twenty-five hundred miles to the railroad at a cost of about $50 million.
Between 1885 and 1889 he again gained control of the Wabash and the Texas and Pacific Railroads, changed how they were organized, and tied them into his Missouri Pacific system. At the same time Gould strengthened the other two elements that made up his wealth.
Gould was a member of West Presbyterian Church at 31 West 42nd Street.
Quotes from others about the person
"He revised its financial structure, waged its competitive struggles, captained its political battles, revamped its administration, formulated its rate policies, and promoted the development of resources along its lines. "
He married Helen Day Miller (1838–1889) in 1863; the couple had six children.