Cornelius Vanderbilt

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Cornelius Vanderbilt Cornelius Vanderbilt

Cornelius Vanderbilt (born May 27, 1794 in Port Richmond on Staten Island , now part of New York City , †  January 4, 1877 in New York City) was one of the most successful and wealthy entrepreneurs in the United States and the founder of the Vanderbilt family. The name Vanderbilt stands together with the names Andrew Carnegie , John D. Rockefeller and J. P. Morgan for the beginning of an economic boom in the USA , the Gilded Age .

Vanderbilt was initially successful as a shipowner and later as a railroad entrepreneur who built up the New York Central Railroad , among other things . He was called the "Railway King " ( English Railroad King or Railroad Tycoon ). He was also given the honorable nickname Commodore . On the other hand, Vanderbilt had a reputation as a ruthless businessman and became the epitome of the " robber baron " (English robber baron ).

Life

Beginnings

Vanderbilt was born as the fourth child and second son of Cornelius and Phebe Vanderbilt (née Hand). His paternal ancestors came from the municipality of De Bilt in the province of Utrecht , Netherlands . The original form of the family name was van der Bilt , which means "from De Bilt". These ancestors emigrated in 1650. Vanderbilt's father was a poor farmer and also made money doing boat haulage in and around New York Harbor.

Vanderbilt left school at the age of eleven. At the age of 16 he bought a sailing ship with a parental allowance, with which he opened a ferry service between Staten Island and New York. Soon he was able to build a small fleet of boats. In the War of 1812 , he supplied some of the United States Army forts near New York Harbor with food . At the age of 20 he married his cousin Sophia Johnson. The couple moved to New York, where Vanderbilt and his brother-in-law De Forrest built a larger schooner, the Charlotte .

In 1818 Vanderbilt sold his boats. Soon he met the wealthy Thomas Gibbons and was hired by him as a steamship captain with an annual salary of 1,000 dollars. Gibbons operated a regular shipping line from New York to Philadelphia and to New Braunschweig . Vanderbilt soon made himself indispensable as a designer and organizer. Vanderbilt drove for Gibbons for 12 years. Then he had enough savings to open his own shipping line. Gibbons' offer to raise his salary by $ 5,000 also failed to keep him. He was now 35 years old and aspired to independence.

The shipowner

Cornelius Vanderbilt in his time as a shipowner
Accessory Transit Company (of Nicaragua) obligation dated November 30, 1855, signed by Charles Morgan

In 1829 Cornelius Vanderbilt founded his own steamship company. In the 1850s he commanded a fleet of a hundred ships.

In 1848 he secured the exclusive transit rights for twelve years with the American atlantic and pacific ship canal company on the sea route from San Juan del Norte on the Caribbean coast, which was then still called Greytown, through the Río San Juan over the Nicaragua overland to San Juan del Sur on the Pacific. This route was about a week shorter than via Panama and a few months shorter than around Cape Horn. As usual, Vanderbilt first undercut the fares of his competitors. Passengers and cargo were transported by ship from New York to the Nicaraguan Atlantic coast and further over the Río San Juan to Lake Nicaragua. After a short overland journey by carriage to the Pacific coast, it was then transported by ship to the American west coast. The company later traded under the Accessory Transit Company .

In 1855, William Walker , a mercenary, managed to take control of Nicaragua. Vanderbilt initially supported Walker in the hope of stabilizing Nicaragua. Walker used alleged violations of the Accessory Transit Company to withdraw the concession and grant it to Vanderbilt's competitors Cornelius K. Garrison and Charles Morgan , who financially supported Walker's further military plans. Vanderbilt successfully put pressure on the US government to withdraw recognition of Walker's regime. In addition, he supported an attempt by the Central American states under the leadership of Costa Rica to cut off Walker's supply routes. Morgan & Garrison, a partnership between Charles Morgan and Cornelius Kingsland Garrison, were the recipients of the short but famous letter:

“Gentlemen: You have undertaken to cheat me. I won't sue you, for the law is too slow. I'll ruin you.
Yours truly, Cornelius Vanderbilt ”

"Gentlemen! You dared to cheat on me. I'm not going to sue you because the judiciary is too slow. I will ruin you.
Sincerely, Cornelius Vanderbilt "

The new government of Nicaragua refused to reopen the transit route, so he started a new line via Panama. Eventually he forced the Pacific Mail to share the market with him and, in 1860, to exercise a joint monopoly with him.

During this period Vanderbilt was also busy with other companies. For example, on May 21, 1855, he founded a transatlantic steamship line that received no state subsidies for the carriage of mail, in contrast to Edward K. Collins's line. With government support, Collins founded the United States Mail Steamship Company in 1847 as a competitor to the British Cunard Line in transatlantic traffic. When two of the five Collins ships sank, the government cut its subsidies in 1856. As usual, Vanderbilt's line offered significantly lower fares and Collins' company eventually went bankrupt.

Cornelius Vanderbilt
The USS Vanderbilt painted by the marine painter Clary Ray

In 1856/1857 the Vanderbilt was built by Jeremiah Simonson in Greenpoint, Long Island . She was in Vanderbilt's North Atlantic Mail Steamship Line used as a mail and passenger steamers. In September 1859 Vanderbilt's daughter, Mrs. DB Allen Vanderbilt, was on board with her son on the return voyage from Europe. These ships also transported emigrants from Europe to America.

When the Civil War broke out, Vanderbilt offered his flagship to the American Navy, and it was taken over on March 24, 1862. It was equipped with 15 guns. From November 1862 to January 1864, the USS Vanderbilt sailed from Hampton Roads, Va., On a mission to intercept the Confederate Alabama , which caused heavy losses among the Union merchant fleet.

For this and other support during the war, Vanderbilt was awarded a gold medal by Congress. The medal is the highest honor a civilian can receive. From then on he was called Commodore .

The railroad king

After the American Civil War , Vanderbilt invested in expanding the railroad network and soon had the most important railroad lines in the United States. In 1873 he opened the first rail link from New York to Chicago . With the railroad construction came an increasing expansion of the industry , which made business possible on an ever larger scale.

Cornelius Vanderbilt died in January 1877 at the age of 82. He was buried in the family mausoleum in Moravian Cemetery in New Dorp on Staten Island .

family

Cornelius Vanderbilt married his cousin Sophia Johnson (1795–1868) on December 19, 1813, who, like himself, came from Port Richmond on Staten Island. At the time he was 19 and she was 18 years old. In 1814 the first child was born, a daughter. Eleven more children followed, the last child was born in 1839.

The nine daughters and three sons:

  1. Phebe Jane (Vanderbilt) Cross (1814–1878)
  2. Ethelinda (Vanderbilt) Allen (1817-1889)
  3. Eliza (Vanderbilt) Osgood (1819–1890)
  4. William Henry Vanderbilt (1821-1885)
  5. Emily Almira (Vanderbilt) Thorn (1823-1896)
  6. Sophia Johnson (Vanderbilt) Torrance (1825-1912)
  7. Maria Louisa (Vanderbilt) Clark Niven (1827-1896)
  8. Frances Lavinia Vanderbilt (1828–1868)
  9. Cornelius Jeremiah Vanderbilt (1830-1882)
  10. Mary Alicia (Vanderbilt) LaBau Berger (1834–1902)
  11. Catherine Juliette (Vanderbilt) Barker LaFitte (1836–1881)
  12. George Washington Vanderbilt (1839–1864)

Vanderbilt also employed his sons-in-law in his undertakings; B. Daniel B. Allen as Managing Director, William K. Thorn as his general counsel and Horace F. Clark as attorney and consultant. His doctors were Jared Linsly and William Bodenhamer and his treasurer Edwin D. Worcester.

In 1869, a year after the death of his first wife, Vanderbilt married a distant cousin, Frank Armstrong Crawford (1839–1885), at the age of 73. She was 45 years younger than him and gave him new courage to face life. Her first marriage to John Elliott of Mobile was unhappily. It is doubtful whether the ten children from the first marriage who were still alive at the time approved the marriage, especially since they were all older than their future stepmother.

Wealth and inheritance

This memorial honors Vanderbilt as the founder of Vanderbilt University

Vanderbilt's company and successful stock market speculation made him one of the richest entrepreneurs of his time. At the end of his life he had about $ 100 million. Converted to today's (2008) purchasing power, his fortune was around 143 billion dollars.

He gave only a small portion of his enormous fortune to charities. However, in 1873 he donated a million dollars to founding Vanderbilt University in Nashville , Tennessee - never before had there been such a large donation for charitable causes. He left the Church of the Strangers in New York $ 50,000.

The youngest son George Washington died eleven years before his father. The son Cornelius Jeremiah - an epileptic whom Cornelius Vanderbilt believed to be incapable of business - was to receive current income from a trust fund, which was endowed with $ 200,000 , according to the will . On the other hand, he bequeathed $ 95 million to his son William, who was just as ruthless a businessman as himself. The nine daughters were given amounts between 250,000 and 500,000 dollars. Cornelius Vanderbilt bequeathed his wife $ 500,000 in cash, the comparatively modest house in New York and 2,000 shares in the New York Central Railroad.

Three daughters and the son Cornelius Jeremiah challenged the will, claiming that their father suffered from delusions and was mentally ill. The battle in court lasted more than a year and was unsuccessful. Cornelius Jeremiah committed suicide in 1882.

Railway companies

Caricature on the rivalry between the US railroad companies as they expand westward (1870): left Cornelius Vanderbilt with the Hudson River Railroad and the New York Central Railroad , right James Fisk with the Erie Railroad

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Cornelius Vanderbilt  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hal Bridges: The Robber Baron Concept In American History . In: Business History Review . tape 32 , no. 1 , 1958, ISSN  0007-6805 , pp. 1–13, here p. 1 .
  2. ↑ William Walker - A Flibustier made himself President of Nicaragua. In: War travelers.
  3. ↑ September 12, 1860: William Walker is executed in Honduras. ( Memento from September 23, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) In: The American Civil War.
  4. ↑ Cornelius Kingsland Garrison - San Francisco's Fifth Mayor. In: The Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco.
  5. ^ Bill Carey: Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt fought war over route through Central America. ( Memento of September 24, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) In: Vanderbilt University website, accessed July 10, 2009.
  6. ↑ Eward K. Collins's Will. In: The New York Times . January 18, 1882.
  7. ^ Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild. SS Vanderbilt. Allen Vanderbilt (15) and Mrs. DB Vanderbilt (40) are passengers 90 and 91.
  8. ↑ Pictures of the Alabama ( Memento of December 16, 2007 in the Internet Archive ). In: Naval History and Heritage Command.
  9. ↑ The Death of Mrs. Vanderbilt obituary in the New York Times, May 5, 1885 (English).
  10. ^ "Deems Memorial" Church of the Strangers. In: New York City Chapter of The American Guild of Organists.
  11. ↑ Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794–1877). In: The Latin Library.
personal data
SURNAME Vanderbilt, Cornelius
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Van Der Bilt, Cornelius; Vander Bilt, Cornelius
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH May 27, 1794
PLACE OF BIRTH Port Richmond on Staten Island (now to: New York City ), New York, United States
DATE OF DEATH January 4, 1877
Place of death New York City , New York, United States