Who was Cornelius Vanderbilt?

Cornelius Vanderbilt

Cornelius Vanderbilt (May 27, 1794-January 4, 1877) was an American steamship and railroad builder, executive, financier, and promoter. He was born on Staten Island to a family that had been in Brooklyn and then Staten Island (New Dorp) since 1644. Borrowing $100 from his mother to buy a periauger, a small boat, he became the largest owner of ships in America. He started the Staten Island Ferry, which still operates to this day. During the Gold Rush he began a service to steam passengers down the East Coast, through Nicaragua by a series of rivers and lakes, then up the West Coast to San Franciso. It netted him millions a year, eventually making him the wealthiest man in America. He became interested in rairoads as early as 1840. By the time of the Civil War, he had sold his shipping interests and began buying up the private rail road lines in and around New York City. He consolidated them into the New York Central System, which became one of the most powerful corporations in America under his ownership and later, under the ownership and management of his son and primary heir, William H. Vanderbilt. He endowed Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN, just before his death in 1877 with several gifts totalling $1,000,000. He left an estate of $100,000,000.

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