The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt

by T. J. Stiles

  29 Theodosius F. Secor and CM v. George Law, May 22, 1861, file 1861–832, Superior Court, NYCC; RGD, NYC, 342:300D; A Sketch of Events in the Life of George Law (New York: J. C. Derby, 1855).

  30 Curtis Peck v. Daniel Drew, January 31, 1848, file PL-1848-P 256, Supreme Court Pleadings, NYCC. See also Summers's descriptions of Law's government dealings, 37, 159–60, and NYT, March 13, 1852.

  31 Strong, 1:272, 348, 2:253; NYT, January 19, 1875; see also Moses Beach, Wealth and Pedigree of the Wealthy Citizens of New York City, 3rd ed. (New York: New York Sun, 1842), 3.

  32 NYT, January 19, 1875; New York Observer, January 21, 1875.

  33 Folkman, 14. On published accounts of the Nicaragua route, see, for example, MM, March 1847.

  34 Ephraim George Squier, Nicaragua: Its People, Scenery, Monuments, and the Proposed Interoceanic Canal (New York: D. Appleton, 1856), 81, 98–9, 107; Orville W. Childs, Report of the Survey and Estimates of the Cost of Construction of the Inter-Oceanic Ship Canal (New York: William C. Bryant, 1852), 5.

  35 Report of Robert Mills, HsR 145, 30th Cong., 2nd sess., vol. 2.

  36 The quotes and descriptions of San Francisco are from Soulé et al., 214–26, 243–4; other information from Daniel B. Allen, ors., v. James H Fisk and CV, January 24, 1851, file PL-1851-A 17, Supreme Court Pleadings, NYCC; NYH, December 29, 1877. See also Kevin Starr, Americans and the California Dream, 1850–1915 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973), 49–63, and Delgado, 75–81.

  37 Soulé et al., ibid.; Daniel B. Allen, ors., vs. Fisk, ibid.; NYT, December 29, 1877.

  38 EP, June 4, 1847; CT, February 11, 1861; NYT, December 27, 1855, February 4, 1861; Folkman, 16–7. The Mercantile Agency first reported on JLW in December 1853; see RGD, NYC, 374:97.

  39 Minutes for March 24, 1849, Minute Book of the Elizabethport and New York Ferry Company, box 4, Central Railroad Company of New Jersey Papers, Hagley Museum and Library; JLW to JMC, March 29, 1849, vol. 3: Letters Received, January 15 to March 29, 1849, JMC-P.

  40 JLW to JMC, April 3, 1849, vol. 4: Letters Received, March 30 to May 11, 1849, JMC-P; JMC to Ephraim G. Squier, May 1, 1849, HED 75, 31st Cong., 1st sess., vol. 10; Folkman, 17–8; Richard W. Van Alstyne, “British Diplomacy and the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, 1850–60,” JModH 11, no. 2 (June 1939): 149–83.

  41 Groesbeck later testified that he had been Drew's broker since about 1848; NYH, March 26, 1868. He also stated that he had known Drew since about 1842; NYT, April 24, 1868.

  42 Dispatch dated April 16, 1849, Manning, 3:316.

  43 Manning, 3:360–5; HED 75, 31st Cong., 1st sess., vol. 10; Terms of Contract Between the State of Nicaragua and the Atlantic & Pacific Ship Canal Company: Proposed by the Commissioners of the State of Nicaragua, at the City of León, in the State of Nicaragua, on the 27th Day of August, 1849 (New York: William C. Bryant & Co., 1849), copy in NYPL. The rival firm signed an agreement on March 14, 1849, but it was never ratified; see Squier, 262, 268. Interestingly, the rival firm attempted to sell its contract to CVs company; JLW to JMC, August 22, 1849, vol. 6: Letters Received, August 15 to October 20, 1849, JMC-P.

  44 Burns, 2–7, 34–5, 39, 59, 67; Squier, 136–8.

  45 Burns, 147–8, 156, 158, 161–2; Mary Wilhelmine Williams, ed., “Letters of E. George Squire to John M. Clayton, 1849–1850,” HAHR 1, no. 4 (November 1918): 426–34; Manning, 3:534. See also Squier, 262, 268.

  46 USMDR, November-December 1849.

  47 Burns, 161–2; Richard W. Van Alstyne, “British Diplomacy and the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty 1850–60,” JModH 11: no. 2 (June 1939): 149–83; USMDR, November–December 1849.

  48 Manning, 7:49.

  49 Robert A. Naylor, “The British Role in Central America Prior to the Clayton-Bulwer TREATY of 1850,” HAHR 40, no. 3 (August 1960): 361–82; Richmond F. Brown, “Charles Lennox Wyke and the Clayton-Bulwer Formula in Central America, 1852–1860,” The Americas 47, no. 4 (April 1991): 411–45; G. F. Hickson, “Palmerston and the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty,” Cambridge Historical Journal 3, no. 3 (1931): 295–303; Mario Rodriguez, “The ‘Prometheus’ and the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty,” JModH 36, no. 3 (September 1964): 260–78; Squier, 263. For Squier's views of Chatfield, see Mary Wilhelmine Williams, ed., “Letters of E. George Squire to John M. Clayton, 1849–1850,” HAHR 1, no. 4 (November 1918): 426–34; Manning, 3:534. The Nicaraguans communicated to the canal company their plans to move against the British in San Juan del Norte; see JLW to JMC, August 22, 1849, vol. 6: Letters Received, August 15 to October 20, 1849, JMC-P.

  50 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; Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston (London: Constable, 1970), 273.

  51 PS, December 6, 1849; National Era, December 27, 1849; Richard W. Van Alstyne, “British Diplomacy and the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, 1850–60,” JModH 11, no. 2 (June 1939): 149–83; Mario Rodriguez, “The ‘Prometheus’ and the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty” JModH 36, no. 3 (September 1964): 260–78; JLW to Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer, New York, January 16, 1850, vol. 8: Letters Received, January 1 to April 9, 1850, JMC-P.

  52 Allan Nevins, The Ordeal of the Union, vol. 1: Fruits of Manifest Destiny, 1847–1852 (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1947), 221, 255; JMC to [John J.] Crittenden, February 10, 1850, Clayton Misc. Mss., NYHS. On JLW's belief that he dictated the resulting treaty, see NYH, June 25, 1850. For insight on the political fever of the moment, see diary entry for January 26, 1850, Strong, 2:5. For Whig attitudes toward “British encroachments and aggressions in Central America,” see American Review, February 1850.

  53 Kemble, 36–9, 46–50.

  54 Stonington Reports, 53. One possible reason for CV's loss of interest in the Stonington was the completion in 1848 of a continuous rail connection between Boston and New York, when the New York & New Haven connected to the HRR. Though the Stonington still offered faster and more comfortable transportation between the two cities, it was already clear that railroads had a tendency to drive out steamboats; see Thomas C. Cochran, Railroad Leaders, 1845–1890: The Business Mind in Action (New York: Russell & Russell, 1965, orig. pub. 1953), 23.

  55 RGD, NYC, 374:193; BE, May 1, 1850; NYTr, October 1, 1850; Heyl, 6:259. On the organization and elaboration of the canal company and its successors, see NYTr, March 26, 1852. CV did not complete purchase of the shipyard until April 8, 1850, when he mortgaged the property for $43,680; 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 For a discussion of the steamships first built for the California business, see Cedric Ridgely-Nevitt, American Steamships on the Atlantic (Newark, Del.: University of Delaware Press, 1981), 103–14.

  56 NYH, December 14, 1849.

  57 Allan Pred, Urban Growth and City-Systems in the United States, 1840–1860 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980), 150.

  58 NYH, December 17, 1849; Baughman, 6–g, 12–3, 44–63; Theodosius F. Secor and CM v. George Law, May 22, 1861, file 1861–832, Superior Court, NYCC. See also Squier's report on the progress made by the canal company, Manning, 3:510.

  59 NYTr, January 5, 1850; NYH, January 9, March 10, 1850.

  60 CM's reluctance to discuss his affairs was a subject of comment in the newspapers. See, for example, a transcription of an amusingly unenlightening interview, NYT, July 31, 1857.

  61 CV to Hamilton Fish, February 7, 1850, vol. 18, Hamilton Fish Papers, LOC. For a reference to Robert Kelly, see Strong, 2:173.

  62 NYH, February 22, 1850.

  63 NYH, February 24, 1850; NYTr, April 24, May 25, 1850; Charter and Act of Incorporation of the American Atlantic and Pacific Ship Canal Company and Treaty of Protection Negociated Between the United States and Great Britain (New York: Globe Job, 1850), copy in NYPL; George L. Bernstein, “Special Relationship an
d Appeasement: Liberal Policy towards American in the Age of Palmerston,” Historical Journal 41, no. 3 (September 1998): 725–50; G. F. Hickson, “Palmerston and the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty,” Cambridge Historical Journal 3, no. 3 (1931): 295–303; Burns, 178–9. JLW even irritated Bulwer; see JLW to Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer, February 25, 1850, vol. 8: Letters Received, January 1 to April 9, 1850, JMC-P.

  64 Ephraim G. Squier to JMC, May 8, 1850, quoted in Mary Wilhelmine Williams, ed., “Letters of E. George Squire to John M. Clayton, 1849–1850,” HAHR 1, no. 4 (November 1918): 426–34. JLW let it be known in the United States as well that he had drafted the treaty himself; see NYH, June 25, 1850.

  65 NYTr, April 25, October 1, 1850; BE, May 1, 1850; see also entries for June 22 and July 10, 1850, William D. Murphy Account Books, vol. 3: 1849–185 i, NYHS; NYH, July 9, 12, 1850.

  66 CV v. Jesse P. Wilson, March 19, 1856, file 1856–2735, Superior Court, and CV v. Mark Wadleigh and Calvin E. Knox, June 24, 1857, file LJ-1857-W-173, Supreme Court Judgments, NYCC; entry for November 7, 1850, William D. Murphy Account Books, vol. 3: 1849–1851, NYHS; RT, September 19, 1850; Stonington Reports, 58.

  67 Nevins, 1:333–5; Strong, 2:17.

  68 NYTr, October 1, 1850. For a ship-by-ship review of all of CVs operations on the Atlantic, see Cedric Ridgely-Nevitt, American Steamships on the Atlantic (Newark, Del.: University of Delaware Press, 1981), 222–49.

  69 Richard W. Van Alstyne, “British Diplomacy and the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, 1850–60,” JModH 11, no. 2 (June 1939): 149–83; Mario Rodriguez, “The ‘Prometheus’ and the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty,” JModH 36, no. 3 (September 1964): 260–78.

  70 Ralph W. Hidy “The Organization and Functions of Anglo-American Merchant Bankers,” JEH 1 (Supplement: The Tasks of Economic History) (December 1941): 53–66; Ralph W. Hidy, “The House of Baring and American Trade,” Bulletin of the Business Historical Society 9, no. 5 (October 1835): 71–5.

  71 JLW and H. L. Routh to Baring Brothers, Rothschild & Sons, Finlay Hodgson & Co., Capel & Co., Sir J. H. Pelly, George Peabody Esq., London, July 21, 1852, vol. 10: Letters Received, January 1851 to August 1853, JMC-P; Baring Brothers to Thomas W. Ward, October 15, 1850, reel 63: Letterbook, April 1848 to April 1851, BB.

  72 JLW and H. L. Routh to Rothschild & Sons, July 17, 1852, vol. 10: Letters Received, January 1851 to August 1853, JMC-P; LT, October 15, 16, 1850.

  73 Baring Brothers to Thomas W. Ward, October 15, 1850, reel 63: Letterbook, April 1848 to April 1851, BB.

  74 Ibid., and James G. King to Messrs Baring Bros. & Co., October 29, 1850, reel 41: Letters Received from New York, BB. On August Belmont and New York society, see Eric Homberger, Mrs. Astor's New York: Money and Social Power in a Gilded Age (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 174–8.

  75 Edward Harold Mott, Between the Ocean and the Lakes: The Story of Erie (New York: Ticker Publishing, 1908), 460; entry for February 3, 1849, Hone ms.

  76 James G. King to Messrs Baring Bros. & Co, October 29, 1850, reel 41: Letters Received from New York, BB.

  77 NYH, November 15, 1850; Farmers' Cabinet, October 31, 1850.

  Eight Star of the West

  1 Zion's Herald and Wesleyan Journal, October 8, 1850; Strong, 2:15–16.

  2 New York Evangelist, January 3, 1850; SA, January 5, 1850; Zion's Herald and Wesleyan Journal, October 8, 1850.

  3 McPherson, 64–77; Strong, 2:21–2.

  4 Littell's Living Age, November 2, 1850.

  5 SED 50, 32nd Cong., 1st sess., vol. 8; LW Dictation.

  6 NYH, December 26, 27, 1850; entry for December 26, 1850, Joseph N. Allen Diary (Allen Diary), BL. See also LT, January 21, 1851.

  7 See Allen's obituary, NYT, March 15, 1883.

  8 Allen Diary; Ephraim George E. Squier, Nicaragua: Its People, Scenery, Monuments, and the Proposed Interoceanic Canal (New York: D. Appleton, 1856), 56, 72–4; Harper's New Monthly Magazine, December 1854. On CVs selection of Punta Arenas, see NYH, August 15, 1854.

  9 Allen Diary. The Orus would soon be wrecked on the river; as a result, the vessel that CV piloted on this occasion has regularly been misidentified as the Director. See Lane, 92, and Folkman, 26. However, the Allen Diary makes clear that the Director was already on the lake.

  10 Allen Diary; HW, March 5, 1859; SA, February 8, 1851; NYH, January 22, 1851.

  11 Allen Diary; NYTr, March 21, 1851.

  12 Squier, 136–8; Allen Diary.

  13 Allen Diary; NYTr, March 21, 1851.

  14 Allen Diary; NYTr, February 10, 1851; NYH, February 1, 27, 1851.

  15 Allen Diary.

  16 John Guthrie, A History of Marine Engineering (London: Hutchinson Educational, 1971), 17, 44, 60; Cedric Ridgely-Nevitt, American Steamships on the Atlantic (Newark, Del.: University of Delaware Press, 1981), 69, 98–101, 105–6, 153, 223; LT, March 18, 1851.

  17 NYH, February 23, 1851; LT, March 18, 1851; SA, March 29, 1851. A Darius Davison supposedly accepted the bet; no more was ever heard of him.

  18 SED 50, 32nd Cong., 1st sess., vol. 8; Congressional Globe, January 17, 1851.

  19 NYH, March 6, 1851.

  20 NYT, February 7, 1856; SED 50, 32nd Cong., 1st sess., vol. 8. Law also became a heavy investor in Aspinwall's Panama Railroad, the largest buyer of the company's bonds; see NYTr, June 16, 1851. For Law's efforts to improve the speed of the mail delivery under such threats as Vanderbilt's, see George Law to N. K. Hall, July 21, 1851, SR 326, 35th Cong., 1st sess., vol. 2. For details on the U.S. Mail and Pacific Mail assets and operations, see SR 292, 36th Cong., 2nd sess., vol. 1.

  21 Daniel T. Rodgers, The Work Ethic in Industrial America, 1850–1920 (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1974), 19, notes, “As late as 1850 the centers of manufacturing remained the home and workshop.”

  22 RGD, NYC, 316:48, 81.

  23 Heyl, 1:123, 219, 307, 331; NYTr, February 10, 25, May 27, 1851; LT, June 30, July 16, 23, 1851; P. T. Barnum, Struggles and Triumphs; or, Forty Years' Recollections of P. T. Barnum (Buffalo, N.Y: Warren, Johnson, 1873), 362–3; John A. Butler, Atlantic Kingdom: America's Contest with Cunard in the Age of Sail and Steam (Washington, D.C.: Brassey's, 2001), 177–8. Tonnage figures tend to vary by source, and should be viewed as approximate.

  24 LT, August 28, 1851; AltaC, August 31, September 2, 1851; Folkman, 29–30.

  25 LT, August 28, 1851; AltaC, August 31, September 2, 1851; Folkman, 29–30. A debate raged over the Nicaragua route in the San Francisco newspapers in early September. Rabe's fellow passenger, Harris T. Fitch, found the crossing entirely satisfactory, and said that Rabe's complaints only started after he was forced to pay for the second half of his journey to California.

  26 NYTr, August 1, 1851. Diplomat John Bozman Kerr confirmed that in July 1851 the Nicaraguan government was discussing a plan to annul the charter of the canal company; Manning, 4:265.

  27 Burns, 43, 47; NYTr, September 5, 6, 24, October 7, 1851; Manning, 4:228–9, 235.

  28 NYTr, October 7, 9, 1851. The bribe figure is from NYTr, December 2, 1851. Newspaper reporters in the mid-nineteenth century were not particularly exacting, but these accounts fit with other reports of White's methods. See also White's testimony, NYH, October 17, 1856.

  29 Compilation of Executive Documents and Diplomatic Correspondence Relative to a Trans-Isthmian Canal in Central America, vol. 2 (New York: Evening Post Printing, 1900), 714–7; Manning, 4:235–6; NYTr, September 5, 1851. Kerr's official correspondence is rife with racial judgments of the Nicaraguans; on March 15, 1852, for example, he wrote of “the ill-blood against each other, natural to mixed races;” Manning, 4:267.

  30 NYTr, September 26, 1851.

  31 NYT, November 15, 1851; NYTr, October 9, December 15, 1851; Manning, 4:256–7, 266-7; James H Quimby v. CV, November 21, 1855, file 1855–1313, Court of Common Pleas, NYCC. On CVs percentage as ATC agent, see JLW's explanation in George S. Salls v. CV, November 17, 1856, file 1855-#1226, Court of Common Pleas, NYCC.

  32 Soulé, 359–64, 379–85.

  33 MM, Decem
ber 1854; NYT, July 3, 1860; Memoirs of William T. Sherman (New York: Da Capo, 1984, orig. pub. 1875), 95–105, 118–24; Soulé, 626–30; Kemble, 71, 152–3, 206; Richard Maxwell Brown, Strain of Violence: Historical Studies of American Violence and Vigilantism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), 123–40.

  34 James P. Delgado, To California by Sea: A Maritime History of the California Gold Rush (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1990), 76–7.

  35 CV to Jonas Winchester, October 15, 1851, Winchester Papers, California Historical Society. It is reported by two of William C. Ralston's biographers that CV asked him in 1851 to investigate a railroad proposed by a group of Californians; see David Lavender, Nothing Seemed Impossible: William C Ralston and Early San Francisco (Palo Alto: American West, 1975), 58, and Julian Dana, The Man Who Built San Francisco: A Study of Ralston's Journey with Banners (New York: Macmillan, 1936), 41.

  36 People of the State of New York v. Cornelius Vanderbilt, Anthony Bird, Stephen Williams, Elias Butler, Jacob Van Cleef and Jacob Arnold, November 22, 1851, New York Supreme Court, box SI-68, NYMA; NYT, March 16, 21, 1853, February 12, 1855; Lane, 71.

  37 A Sketch of Events in the Life of George Law (New York: J. C. Derby, 1855), 46; Kemble, 46–52, 55.

  38 Kemble, 46, 54–7. As Kemble shows, the mail monopoly was immensely lucrative. In July 1850, Pacific Mail paid a dividend of 50 percent ($50 per share, with the par value of each share being $100). CVs competition cut fares from a high of $300 for first cabin to as low as $80.