(Excerpt from The Private Collection of W. H. Vanderbilt ...)
Excerpt from The Private Collection of W. H. Vanderbilt Medals 1861 - 65-68-70. Legion of Honor 1870. Officer of the Legion of Honor, 1878. First Class Medal Exposition Universal 1878. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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William Henry Vanderbilt was the son of Cornelius Vanderbilt, 1794-1877 and Sophia (Johnson) Vanderbilt. He was born on May 8, 1821, at New Brunswick, New Jersey, where his mother operated a hotel while his father was master of a ferry-boat running thence to New York City. When he was eight years old, his parents removed to New York.
Vanderbilt attended grammar school in New York.
At seventeen, Vanderbilt was put to work in a ship-chandler's shop, but about a year later he became a clerk in the banking house of Drew, Robinson & Company, of which one of the partners was Daniel Drew. He increased the size of his farm to 350 acres and handled it so well that its profits rose. During the depression of 1857 the Staten Island Railroad, a line thirteen miles long, became insolvent, and William soon afterward asked his father's influence in having him appointed receiver.
The father, though still doubtful of William's ability, acquiesced, and to his surprise the latter succeeded in rehabilitating the road. He was therefore a railroad executive before his father went into that business. When Cornelius acquired control of the New York & Harlem Railroad, he made William vice-president (1864) and gave him a home on Fifth Avenue; and thus, when he was forty-three years old, the son's ability belatedly received parental recognition. Soon after receiving the Harlem office, he was also made vice-president of the Hudson River Railroad, the second line acquired by his father.
Even though, he began to take an efficient hand in railroad affairs, showing great ability in management, in improving track and equipment, in regulating rates and conciliating labor, he was never permitted to become a full executive until his father's failing hand relinquished the reins in the last few months of his life. Then, with less than nine years of life left to him, he rapidly began to expand his activities. One of his first problems was a contest over his father's will, brought jointly by a scapegrace brother, Cornelius Jeremiah, who had been cut off with $200, 000, and two of his eight sisters, who had received only from $300, 000 to $500, 000 apiece.
The bulk of the estate was left to William. The decision of the surrogate in his favor in March 1879, was followed by a secret compromise. It was reported that William in settlement had given each of the eight sisters another half million in bonds, and had pacified Cornelius Jeremiah by guaranteeing to him the income from a million dollars. It was at his insistence that his father had bought control of the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railway and the Michigan Central Railroad, and acquired considerable stock in the Canada Southern Railway. William now welded the last-named line into the New York Central network, combining it with the Michigan Central, and became president of all the affiliated corporations.
Within three years, he had bought control of the Chicago & North-Western Railway and a large interest in the Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati & Indianapolis Railway, which paved the way for the later entry of the Vanderbilt lines into Cincinnati and St. Louis. Controlling interest in the rival New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railway (Nickel Plate), opened in 1882, was acquired after that date by the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern.
The former road was forced into the hands of receivers in 1885, sold at foreclosure in 1887, and reorganized by the Vanderbilt interests. In 1885, the New York, West Shore & Buffalo Railway (West Shore), paralleling the line of the New York Central & Hudson River, was leased by Vanderbilt at the instance of J. Pierpont Morgan. When the New York Central trainmen and laborers refused to take part in the great railroad strike of 1877, despite a cut in their wages, Vanderbilt distributed $100, 000 among them as reward for their loyalty. Like his father, he was constructive. He not only greatly improved the railroad lines under his domination, but enormously increased his own fortune. Following the report on rate discrimination made in 1879 by the committee headed by A. Barton Hepburn, Vanderbilt, recognizing the unpopularity of unified control, turned over to J. Pierpont Morgan 250, 000 shares of his railroad stock for sale in Europe, in order to avoid depressing the American market.
The sale, which greatly increased the prestige of Morgan and relieved Vanderbilt, also brought much foreign capital into American business. For several years Vanderbilt was a large shareholder and a director of the Western Union Telegraph Company; but in March 1881 he resigned his directorate and sold most of his holdings in the company. Probably warned by failing health, he resigned all his railroad presidencies in May 1883. Thereafter, he ordered, Vanderbilts should be chairmen of the boards of directors, and the presidents be practical, working executives of somewhat less power. His two older sons, Cornelius and William Kissam were thereupon elected board chairmen of the various Vanderbilt lines.
In 1884, he insisted upon returning to Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant the deeds to certain real-estate parcels, her husband's swords, medals, works of art, and gifts from foreign governments, all forced by the General upon Vanderbilt in pledge for a loan of $150, 000 which he was unable to repay. It was believed that during the less than nine years of his sole power, William Henry Vanderbilt had nearly or quite doubled the fortune left him by his father.
Vanderbilt died suddenly of cerebral hemorrhage in New York in 1885.
Vanderbilt was the richest American after he took over his father's fortune in 1877 until his own death in 1885. He gave $450, 000 all told to Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, $50, 000 to St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church, and, in 1884, $500, 000 for new buildings to the College of Physicians and Surgeons. When the Khedive of Egypt presented an ancient obelisk to the United States, Vanderbilt paid the expense of c. $100, 000 for removing it from Egypt and setting it in Central Park, New York.
(Leopold is delighted to publish this classic book as part...)
(Excerpt from The Private Collection of W. H. Vanderbilt ...)
Quotations:
"The railroads are not run for the benefit of the dear public. That cry is nonsense. They are built for men who invest their money and expect to get a fair percentage of the same. "
"I have had no real gratification or enjoyment of any sort more than my neighbour on the next block who is worth only half a million. "
"The public be damned. I am working for my stockholders. "
After his death it was found that, Vanderbilt had bequeathed $10, 000, 000, half outright and half in trust, to each of his eight children, Cornelius, William K. , Frederick W. , George W. , Mrs. Elliott F. Shepherd, Mrs. William D. Sloane, Mrs. W. Seward Webb, and Mrs. H. McK. Twombly; most of them had already been given mansions. To his eldest son, Cornelius, he gave $2, 000, 000 more, and $1, 000, 000 conditionally to the latter's eldest son, also named Cornelius. More than a million was distributed among various missions, churches, hospitals, the Y. M. C. A. , the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Vanderbilt University.
The residue of the fortune was divided between the two eldest sons, Cornelius and William K. , subject to the payment of a $200, 000 annuity to his widow. To her also he left his home and objects of art; after her death these were to pass to the son George. He had provided elsewhere for the rebuilding of the little Moravian Church at New Dorp, Staten Island, where his father and mother had been parishioners and where he and all his brothers and sisters were christened; and in the cemetery adjoining he had erected a magnificent family mausoleum.
He was not physically strong during boyhood and adolescence, a weakness with which his able-bodied and dynamic father could not sympathize.
At the age of nineteen William offended his father, now well-nigh a millionaire, by marrying Maria Louisa Kissam, a young woman of refinement and good family, but the daughter of an impecunious Brooklyn clergyman.
Cornelius himself had married at nineteen, but he thought it folly for one so weak and footless as William to do the same. William's health declined within a year after his marriage, and, believing that he would never amount to much in business or finance, the father bought a seventy-acre farm for him at New Dorp, Staten Island, and sent him and his wife to it to make their own way. The contemptuous ignoring and suppression of it for two-thirds of his lifetime, was a bitter drop in his cup; it gave him a somewhat dour exterior, and instilled cynicism into his nature.
Soon after his father's death, Vanderbilt erected a mansion on Fifth Avenue which was the talk of the nation, and acquired a gallery of paintings, not to mention sculpture and other items, which was declared to be the finest private collection then in existence. Nevertheless, he remained temperate and simple in personal habits to the end. His sons and daughters were all brought up in the same tradition. He made many benefactions during his lifetime.
In 1841, William married Maria Louisa Kissam (1821–1896), daughter of the Reverend Samuel Kissam and Margaret Hamilton Adams. They had eight children.
May 27, 1794 – January 4, 1877 Was an American business magnate and philanthropist who built his wealth in railroads and shipping.
7 May 1795 - 17 August 1868
29 December 1830 - 2 April 1882
23 September 1832 - 16 November 1836
6 June 1823 - 5 December 1896
8 May 1827 - 4 June 1896
8 March 1817 - 25 February 1889
8 December 1829 - 24 May 1868
7 November 1814 - 29 June 1878
30 May 1819 - 29 September 1890
25 April 1834 - 16 August 1902
9 March 1825 - 24 October 1912
24 June 1821 - 6 November 1896
1852 – July 29, 1946 Was an American philanthropist and a member of the prominent Vanderbilt family.
July 23, 1845 – Manhattan, March 3, 1924 Was an American heiress and a member of the prominent Vanderbilt family.
January 8, 1854 – April 11, 1952 Was an American heiress and a member of the prominent Vanderbilt family.
1860–1936 Was an American heiress.
December 12, 1849 – July 22, 1920 Was an American heir, businessman, philanthropist and horsebreeder.
February 2, 1856 – June 29, 1938 Was a member of the American plutocratic Vanderbilt family.
November 14, 1862 – March 6, 1914 Was an art collector and member of the prominent Vanderbilt family, which amassed a huge fortune through steamboats, railroads, and various business enterprises.
November 27, 1843 – September 12, 1899 Was an American socialite, heir, businessman, and a member of the prominent United States Vanderbilt family.
