The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt (133 page)

13
NYTr
, March 18, 1878. Note also that CV sold to Van Pelt extensive property on the East River, apparently the grounds on which the Simonson shipyard stood. See
New York Life Insurance & Trust Co. v. CV, Freeman Campbell and Mary Ann, His Wife, Rutherford Moody and Eunice P., His Wife, Jacob J. Van Pelt and Sarah, His Wife, and Jay Jarvis, President of the Citizen's Bank
, September 25, 1855, file PL 1855-N14, Supreme Court Pleadings, NYCC. Personal wealth was extraordinarily difficult to ascertain. My statement that the $11 million figure sounds accurate is based on a close examination of surviving evidence of CVs business transactions during this period. My belief that this would make him one of the wealthiest men in the country is based on an extensive reading of the RGD reports, as well as other sources.

14
NYH
, April 29, 1853;
NYT
, March 11, 1853;
SA
, April 30, May 7, 1853. See also
CT
, May 4, 1853, and a quotation from the
New York Illustrated News
, April 9, 1853, in Choules, 18.

15
NYTr
, June 2, 1852.

16
Quoted in
The Knickerbocker
, July 1853. See also Choules, 18–22.

17
SA
, May 7, 1853.

18
NYT
, April 15, May 13, 1853.

19
Choules, 28.

20
Circular
, May 21, June 1, 1853;
NYT
, May 21, 1853;
SA
, May 28, 1853; Choules, 25–6; Richard Schell to WLM, May 21, 1853, vol. 37: Letters Received, May 14–30, 1853, WLMP.

21
Choules, 26;
NYT
, May 21, 1853;
Spirit of the Times
, June 25, 1853.

22
See CVs letter to this effect,
NYH
, September 28, 1853.

23
JLW to WLM, April 25, 1853, vol. 35: Letters Received, April 22 to May 2, 1853, WLMP.

24
NYH
, May 28, 30, 1853.

25
NYT
, July 21, 1853.

26
RGD, NYC, 341:184; Medbery, 312. RGD may have had its dates wrong; in July, Robinson was reported as the head of the “bull clique” in Erie;
NYH
, July 29, 1853.

27
NYT
, March 16, 1852;
National Magazine
, March 1853; Tyler Anbinder,
Five Points: The 19th-Century New York City Neighborhood That Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections, and Became the World's Most Notorious Slum
(New York: Free Press, 2001), 67–8, 245–9.

28
NYH
, July 29, 1853.

29
NYH
, June 17, 1853;
Spirit of the Times
, June 25, 1853;
NYT
, September 24, 1853.

30
Quotation in
Spirit of the Times
, June 25, 1853; Choules, 30, 245. The letter quoted in
Spirit of the Times
names no author, but some of the language is identical to that of Choules's book.

31
CT
, June 21, 1853. For other coverage, see in particular press coverage in late June and early July, such as
Spirit of the Times
, June 25, July 2, 1853. On the
North Star
's tour in general, see Choules, passim.

32
Choules, 47, 49–51; Muriel E. Hidy,
George Peabody: Merchant and Financier, 1829–1854
(New York: Arno Press, 1978), 356. CV attempted to return the favor to Peabody, inviting him and other notables for a jaunt aboard the
North Star
. Also, though CV brought his own gold, Peabody facilitated his financial transactions in England. See George Peabody to CV, June 13, 1853, ser. I, letterbook 42, mss. 181, George Peabody Papers, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass.

33
Choules, 51, 56, 118, 145, 222–4, 241–3, 247–8, 262, 322. Powers's fee was named in
PS
, September 8, 1853.

34
RGD, NYC, 374:1; Choules, 32, 71.

35
LW Dictation; Croffut, 108.

36
Choules, 82, 103; Croffut, 108.

37
Choules, 324.

38
Choules, 351.

39
Croffut, 68–9.

40
Choules, 348–50.

41
NYT
, August 12, 1853.
NYT
only referred to CM as “the Vanderbilt agent.” The Nicaragua line was still known as the Vanderbilt line. The other plausible candidates, Daniel Allen and CKG, were in Europe and California, respectively.

42
NYT
, August 12, 1853; NYTr, September 13, 1855;
Spirit of the Times
, August 11, 1849.

43
NYT
, September 24, 1853;
NYH
, September 24, 1853.

44
NYT
, January 5, 1877. Lane believed the letter was real and reprinted it without caveat, 109. Lane also wrote that CKG joined CM in ousting CV; as I will discuss in Chapter Ten, I believe that this was not the case. In this I am contradicting virtually every historical account of this episode.

45
NYH
, September 28, 1853. In assessing CVs dispute with the ATC, Folkman, 53–5, concludes that CV was in the wrong—that he had pocketed roughly $500,000 during his agency. Simple theft was out of keeping with CVs personality or methods, whereas blatant lying was the hallmark of JLW. The numbers reported by the
NYH
during the airing of this argument cannot be trusted. The ATC later paid CV to settle the dispute—hardly the step to be expected from the victim of a half-million-dollar theft.

46
NYTr
, September 30, 1853;
NYH
, October 27, 28, November 3, 1853. For CM's office, see an ad in the
NYT
, December 17, 1855. A curious debate arose in the
NYH
, October 31–November 2, 1853, over whether the ATC legally could own the steamships CV had sold it. Only a few papers from the lawsuit survive; see, for example,
CV v. ATC
, January 12, 1854, file PL 1854-V9, Supreme Court Pleadings, NYCC.

47
Circular
, July 8, 1854;
NYT
, July 4, 1854;
USDM
, July 15, 1854;
HC
, July 10, 1854. On the loss of the
Independence
, see
AltaC
, April 1, 1853, and a report from the
San Francisco Whig
, reprinted in the
LT
, May 13, 1853.

48
NYT
, October 12, 1853;
EP
, quoted in the
HC
, October 17, 1853; RGD, NYC, 341:184. Drew was not new to transactions with the Erie Railroad. As early as February 10, 1842, he and Isaac Newton supplied a steamboat connection to the Erie's terminus at Piermont; see
Daniel Drew and Isaac Newton v. New York & Erie Rail Road Co
., September 10, 1842, file 1842-#331, Superior Court, NYCC.

49
LW Dictation.

50
CV v. ATC
, January 12, 1854, file PL 1854-V9, Supreme Court Pleadings, NYCC;
NYH
, December 2, 7, 8, 1853;
NYTr
, December 9, 1853.

51
NYH
, January 6, 7, 1854.

52
NYT
, January 17, 23, 1854;
NYH
, November 11, 18, 1853. William Thorn held a mortgage on half the value of the
Uncle Sam
and
Yankee Blade
, for $130,000 advanced to Mills; I am assuming that Thorn, as CVs son-in-law, served as his agent in this matter. See RGD, NYC, 374:118.

53
Allan Nevins,
Ordeal of the Union
, vol. 2:
A House Dividing, 1852–1857
(New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1947), 50–1; CV to WLM, October 10, 1853, vol. 43: Letters Received, September 28 to October 24, 1853, WLMP.

54
Allan Nevins,
Ordeal of the Union
, vol. 1:
Fruits of Manifest Destiny, 1847–1852
(New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1947), 39–40, 160.

55
Joseph L. Williams, Washington, to James N. Reynolds, New York, January 23, 1854, quoted in HsR 2, 36th Cong., 2nd sess., vol. 1;
NYT
, January 17, 1854. For an example of Williams's lobbying, see
NYT
, July 26, 1852.

56
NYT
, January 17, 1854.

57
Joseph L. Williams, Washington, to James N. Reynolds, New York, March 21, 1854, quoted in HsR 2, 36th Cong., 2nd sess., vol. 1; Croffut, 109.

58
JLW to WLM, February 22, 1854, vol. 48: Letters Received, February 6 to March 15, 1854, WLMP.

59
When Nicaragua threatened to tax specie shipments, for example, Marcy intervened; Manning, 4:395–7.

60
Folkman, 49, 54–9.

61
NYT
, March 14, May 18, 1854.

62
NYT
, July 25, 29, 1854;
NYH
, April 26, 1853; July 25, 1854; Folkman, 63–7; James M. Woods, “Expansionism as Diplomacy: The Career of Solon Borland in Central America, 1853–1854,”
The Americas
40, no. 3 (January 1984): 399–415; Nevins,
House Dividing
, 365–6. The destruction of Greytown followed on earlier conflicts with the municipality; on February 21, 1853, the town's authorities led a mob in an attack on Punta Arenas, which destroyed some of the ATC buildings. See SED 8, 33rd Cong., 1st sess., vol. 4;
Harper's New Monthly Magazine
, December 1854;
NYT
, March 16, April 14, 1853;
LT
, March 30, 1853;
National Era
, April 7, 1853. The outbreak of the Crimean War, and the fact that Greytown was largely American in population, muted the British response to the destruction of the town; see George L. Bernstein, “Special Relationship and Appeasement: Liberal Policy towards America in the Age of Palmerston,”
Historical Journal
41, no. 3 (September 1998): 725–50.