The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt (143 page)

35
NYH
, June 26, 1863; LW Dictation.

36
NYH
, June 26–9, July 13, 1863.

37
HW
, July 11, 1863.

38
Ibid.;
NYH
, July 1–5, 1863;
Independent
, July 2, 1863; Strong, 3:328.

39
At the election of 1864, CV voted 29,607 shares; Directors' Minutes, May 17, 1864, HRR, reel 27, box 242, NYCRR. As ever, it is impossible to know how many he really owned. On February 5, 1867, CV refused to tell a committee of the state legislature how much Harlem stock he owned, but his son William put the total at about half of the total number of shares; NYSAD 19, 90th sess., 1867.

40
Strong, 3:329–30.

41
Seymour J. Mandelbaum,
Boss Tweed's New York
(New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1965), 58, 66–70.

42
Summers,
Good Stealings
, 16–29, and throughout; Mark Wahlgren Summers, “‘To Make the Wheels Revolve We Must Have Grease’: Barrel Politics in the Gilded Age,”
Journal of Policy History
14, no. 1 (2002): 49–72; Seymour J. Mandelbaum,
Boss Tweed's New York
(New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1965), 46–75. Glenn C. Altschuler and Stuart M. Blumin argue in
Rude Republic: Americans and Their Politics in the Nineteenth Century
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000), 8 (see also 84–5), that the “uncomfortably disreputable associations and activities” of mass party politics that rose in the 1830s alienated elites.

43
Clews, 111; Fowler, 124; Medbery 92–3, 98. Lane, 193, accepts that Drew fought CV in the 1863 corner.

44
RGD, NYC 366:300c.

45
Clifford Browder, author of
The Money Game in Old New York: Daniel Drew and His Times
(Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1986), a poorly sourced and unsatisfying biography of Drew, argues, 101–2, that Drew did not take part in the Harlem corner of 1863. I believe he is correct. Edmund Clarence Stedman, in
The New York Stock Exchange
(New York: Stock Exchange Historical Company, 1905), 174, observed that Drew “is said” to have opposed CV in the corner, but he appears to be simply citing Clews.

46
OR
ser. 3, vol. 3: 1083; J. C. Buckhout to CV February 11, May 23, 1864, Engineer's Office Letterbook, HRR, 1864, box 19, NYCRR.

47
McKay, 216–29.

48
McKay, 195–210, 216; Burrows & Wallace, 887–99. Maps in Burrows & Wallace, 891, and
NYH
, July 20, 1863, show no fires in the vicinity of CVs home.

49
Burrows & Wallace, 896. On HFC and AS's continuing political prominence, see Strong, 3:101, 513.

50
Jay Gould to EC, August 20, 1863, fold. 5, box 38, ECP.

51
Klein, 15, 27–54, 72–3; RGD, NYC 347:737. Klein's biography remains definitive.

52
George Rogers Taylor and Irene D. Neu,
The American Railroad Network, 1861–1890
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1956), 2–29.

53
NYT
, November 24, 1854; NYSAD 114, 90th sess., 1867; NYSAD 38, 103rd sess., 1880.

54
See the testimony of Edwin D. Worcester, HFC, AS, and Robert L. Banks, NYSAD 19, 90th sess., 1867. The importance of local freight to the Central can be seen from a chart provided in testimony by Worcester before Congress: in 1862, through freight amounted to 777,000 tons, local 610,000; in 1863, through 824,000, local 624,000; and local surpassed through in 1864, 790,000 to 766,000 through. Due to lesser mileage on local freight, the earnings from through freight were more than double. See SR 307, part 2, 43rd Cong., 1st sess., vol. 3, 158.

55
Julius Grodinsky
Railroad Consolidation: Its Economics and Controlling Principles
(New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1930), 29–31; Alfred D. Chandler Jr., ed.,
The Railroads; The Nation's First Big Business: Sources and Readings
(New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1965), 10, 159–60.

56
Irene D. Neu,
Erastus Corning: Merchant and Financier, 1794–1872
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1960), 1–13, 43, 161–4; Harlow, 19, 112; Hungerford, 72–3, 93;
NYT
, April 10, 1872; JMD to EC, February 1, 1867, fold. 3, box 89, CV to EC, September 15, 1863, HFC to EC, September 21, 1863, fold. 3, box 82, ECP.

57
Strong, 3:416; Fowler, 178; Smith, 252–3. See also RGD, NYC 349:983, which notes Jerome was considered to be of good character, “& reputed very strong.”

58
Jay Gould to EC, November 28, 1863, fold. 7, box 38, Watts Sherman to EC, October 22, 1863, fold. 3, box 82, ECP; Directors' Minutes, October 20, 1863, HR, oversize vol. 247, NYCRR; Neu,
Corning
, 173–4. For an example of a nearly contemporary HR complaint to the NYC, see Samuel Sloan to EC, March 17, 1864, copied in Executive Committee Minutes, March 24, 1864, HR, oversize vol. 249, and cited in Directors' Minutes, March 18, 1864, NYC, vol. 3, box 34, NYCRR.

59
CV to EC, November 12, 1863, fold. 7, box 38, Watts Sherman to EC, December 7, 1863, fold. 2, box 39, ECP; Smith, 379.

60
Watts Sherman to EC, October 22, 1863, fold. 3, box 82; JHB to EC, November 11, 19, 1863, CV to EC, November 12, 1863, fold. 7, box 38; all in ECP. See also Corning's testimony in NYSAD 19, 90th sess., 1867.

61
NYH
, November 19, 1863, in
NYT
, November 28, 1863. Jerome, who owned a controlling interest in
NYT
, appears to have pushed it to attack the Central's management, calling it the Democratic ring that ran New York (see Jay Gould to EC, November 28, 1863, JHB to EC, fold. 7, box 38, ECP). The notion that the Central under EC and Richmond “was itself the Democratic political organization,” as argued by Thomas C. Cochran,
Railroad Leaders, 1845–1890: The Business Mind in Action
(New York: Russell & Russell, 1965, orig. pub. 1953), 25, is a historical truism that deserves reexamination. Unquestionably EC and Richmond were leaders of the state's Democratic Party, and used their power in the railroad to gain influence. But even cynical contemporaries admitted that they did not control the government. See, for example, the
Nation
, April 18, 1867. And John V. L. Pruyn objected to directors being chosen because of their political affiliations (in this case, Republican); see entry for November 10, 1864, John V. L. Pruyn Journal, box 2, John V. L. Pruyn Papers, NYSL.

62
CV to EC, November 20, 1863, fold., box 38, ECP.

63
JHB to EC, November 20, 1863, fold. 7, box 38, Leonard W. Jerome to CV enclosed in CV to EC, December 5, 1863, fold. 2, box 39, ECP.

64
NYT
, December 3, 1863.

65
CT
, December 8, 1863;
NYT
, December 9, 1863;
NYH
, December 9, 1863.

66
NYH
, December 13, 1863; entry for December 11, 1863, Pruyn Journal; Richard M. Schell to EC, December 11, 1863, fold. 2, box 39, ECP.

67
CV to EC, December 25, 1863, fold. 2, box 39, ECP; Neu,
Erastus Corning
, 177–8. In relation to this, see CV to Samuel L. M. Barlow, March 6, 1860, BW box 36 (14), Samuel L. M. Barlow Collection, HL.

68
For a precise description of 10 Washington Place, see
NYT
, January 5, 1877. In the 1870 U.S. census, CV had five servants resident at 10 Washington Place, all born in Ireland.

69
This account of CVs golden wedding celebration is from
NYTr
, December 21, 1863, and
Memorial of the Golden Wedding of Cornelius and Sophia Vanderbilt, December 19, 1863
(New York: Baker & Godwin, 1864), copy in Duke. The
Memorial
identifies Ann S. Stephens as the author of the
Tribune
story.

70
Smith, 409; RGD, NYC 343:316; Certificate of Incorporation, November 27, 1863, Certificate of Increase of the Capital Stock, October 5, 1866, Atlantic Mail Steamship Company, NYCC. Allen and Garrison did not appear as the original incorporators; they were JHB, Edward A. Quintard (Charles Morgan's son-in-law), Edward Mott Robinson, Samuel G. Wheeler, Charles A. Gould, and William Barton Allen (son of Daniel Allen). Once in operation, both Allen and Cornelius Garrison served as directors, with their headquarters at 5 Bowling Green, CVs old office. See also
CT
, July 20, 1864. On Osgood, see Smith, 409;
NYT
, May 4, 1867;
NYH
, March 19, 1868.

71
NYTr
, December 21, 1863.

72
NYS
, December 19, 22, 1877;
NYH
, December 27, 1877, in Vanderbilt Will Trial Case Clippings, NYPL;
NYTr
, March 13, 18, 1878; Ellen W. Vanderbilt to HG, March 19, 1868, reel 2, HGP. It appears that CJV had bad checks outstanding that very evening; see HG to Hanson A. Risley, March 27, 1864, Hanson A. Risley Papers, Duke. Note also that he had resumed his practice of befriending leading politicians, notably Schuyler Colfax, who became speaker of the house in 1863, with CJV claiming to have helped secure him the post; Willard H. Smith,
Schuyler Colfax: The Changing Fortunes of a Political Idol
(Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Bureau, 1952), 182–5.

73
NYS
, December 9, 1885; NYSAD 75, 84th sess., 1861; NYSAD 175, 86th sess., 1863; NYSAD 125, 87th sess., 1864. In 1863, WHV owned five carriages and 160 ounces of silver plate, indications of his prosperity; Annual List, May 1, 1863, Collection District 1, Division 21, New York, New York, District 1: Annual Lists, 1862–3, roll 38, Internal Revenue Assessment Lists for New York and New Jersey, 1862–1866, Microfilm Publication M603, NA. He had no income listed, suggesting he earned the bulk of his income through corporate dividends, which were taxed at the source.

74
Memorial of the Golden Wedding; NYTr
, January 5, 1877; Dorothy Kelly MacDowell,
Commodore Vanderbilt and His Family: A Biographical Account of the Descendants of Cornelius and Sophia Johnson Vanderbilt
(n.p., 1989), 22.

75
NYS
, December 9, 1885;
NYT
, February 4, 1864. January 1, 1864, is usually stated as George's death date. The
NYT
report on George's funeral gives December 31; as it was the account closest in time to the event, and had other telling details, I am accepting December 31.