Cornelius vanderbilt
Cornelius vanderbiltCornelius Vanderbilt was born on May 27, 1794. He was an American Steamship and Railroad builder as well as a financier and promoter. He was born to a poor family and he quit school at eleven. He owned his first business at age sixteen as a transport and freight service. By the war of 1812, the government was contracting him to supply forts around New York and the profits allowed him to build a schooner and two other boats for coastal trade. He became known as "the commodore" because he had the largest schooner on the Hudson River. By 1817 he had over $9000 to his name. He sold his company and went to Thomas Gibbons in 1818 to be part of ferryboat service on the Hudson. He charged less than a fourth of the going rate and was taken to court in Gibbons vs. Ogden where the supreme court nullified the monopoly New York had given to Fulton and Livingston. After that, Vanderbilt controlled most of the Hudson River shipping. He made himself and Gibbons a fortune. In 1829 he decided to start his own company and he met his biggest rival, Daniel Drew. Vanderbilt eliminated all his competition by lowering his prices to a mere 12 and � cent apiece. Next he challenged the Hudson River Association in the Albany trade and they paid him to go elsewhere. Vanderbilt continued to improve his businesses and his boats, adding luxury and comfort to all his boats, he launched the largest steamboat ever in existence in 1846 and it was named for him. By 1840 his company had more than 100 steamboats and more employees than any other company in the United States at the time. By the time he was 40, Vanderbilt's fortune exceeded 500,000 dollars, but he was still looking for new opportunities. During the 1849 gold rush, Vanderbilt offered an overland route across the isthmus of Panama that saved 600 miles and this got him over 1 million dollars a year. By 1853 he was making money so quickly that he took the first vacation of his entire life. He built a steam yacht, the North Star, and toured Europe, before he went he resigned presidency of the Accessory Transit Company. He dabbled in Atlantic passenger ships but found them to be unprofitable and he sold all but the one named for him, for three million dollars, turning over the remaining ship to the U.S. government. As Vanderbilt closed on 70, he began his railroad empire, he bought out New York and Harlem railroads, defeating Drew again in the process. By the time 1867 rolled around Vanderbilt owned Central Railroad as well. He only hit a snag when Drew put fraudulent shares of the Erie railroad on the market as he bought the company and he continued to buy them, he lost over 2 million dollars. Vanderbilt helped stabilize the economy when, during the panic of 1873, he announced he was going to build Grand Central Station in New York. By 1875 his New York Central Railroad controlled the New York to Chicago route. He never put much into philanthropy, the few no solicited services he accomplished were, $50,000 for the Church of Strangers in New York and $1 million to Central University, now called Vanderbilt University. He left $95 million dollars to his son William and when he died he was the richest man on Earth.