Tales of the Commodore: Cornelius Vanderbilt

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Cornelius Vanderbilt at 200
BY
orn 200 years ago this May
27, the man who gave the
bequest that made Vander­
bilt University more than a
gleam in a Methodist bish­
op's eye was in many ways an unlikely
choice as an educational benefactor.
He preferred the outdoors to the con­
fines of the classroom and left school at
age 11. His own handwriting was virtu­
ally illegible, his grammar atrocious. He
was a man who never wasted words,
and the words he did utter were remark­
able mostly for their richness of profani­
ty. The wealthiest man in America at
B
Th e abo ve artwork featuring th e Co mm odore is
tak en from an engraving on a Vanderbilt Uni versi­
ty diplom a dat ed 1889
GAYNELLE
DOLL
the time of his death, he was not known
for his philanthropy and made only one
other significant charitable contribution
during his lifetime.
It is Hollywood's loss that Com­
modore Cornelius Vanderbilt, the man
who shortly before his death gave nearly
a million dollars for the founding of a
Southern university, was born too early
for his larger-than-life persona to be
fully exploited.
The fourth of nine children born to a
family of modest means, he built his
fortune from a single small ferry to a
steamship empire, and, relatively late in
life, went on to multiply his already
considerable fortune several times over
by buying up and improving railroad
VANDERBILT MAGAZINE / Summ er 1994 /6
lines. He married his first cousin, whc
bore him 13 children. H e paid hi
daughters little attention. The younge,·
of his three sons, his favorite, died at an
early age. His namesake, Cornelius Var.
derbilt, he denounced as a physical an
moral weakling. The eldest of the sop.'
was regarded by his father as a dullard.
Twice when family members dil
pleased him, he had them committed t
lunatic asylums. After his wife's death
in 1868, the Commodore remarried,
this time a distant cousin
who was 43 years his
junior.
La wyer and novelist
Louis Auchincloss, who married int
the Vanderbilt family, wrote of Cor
study of
was will
in Nicar
adventUl
Garrison
wild Cer
William
70, had t
his mail
railroads
York Cel
largest f
who COD
and a vi
genius a
man wh
how to 1
h ow to
cheapes
enh ance
Yet to
the FTC,
regulatir:
as it wa
Zeitgeis
able tad,
warts ar
ents of t:
old Cal
example
to whic
could t,
modest
Upon h:
18 77 , t
York Tir
and liter
Nor did
establisl
'1 .,
t1J.
1
'1i',,',1,':
~// ,;,
~;,~ ~" :
r,. "
""
lsin, who
paid hi s
youngest
died at an
dius Van­
ysical and
: the sons
dullard.
bers d i s­
lmitted to
fe's death
nelius: "In response to those who claim
that Vanderbilt had a great role in devel­
oping n ecessary transportation for a
growing nation, it should be stated that
lor years he idled all the vessels on his
East-to-West Coast N icaraguan route in
response to heavy Lribes from the own­
ers of the rival Panamanian passage.
1nd if he showed a fine L'1.triotic spirit
In offering [President Lincoln during the
Civil War] to sink the Merrimac, it is
equally t rue that the ves sels that he
chartered to the U .S. Navy for the expe­
Jition to New Orleans turned out to be
rotten and unfit for ocean duty.
liThe contrast between h eroism and
meanness is constantly baffling in the
\rudy of his long career. The man who
was willing to kindle a small civil war
in Nicaragua against such unprincipled
adventurers as the shippers Cornelius
Garrison and Charles Morgan and the
wild Central American political fanatic
William Walker; the man who, after age
70, had the foresight and energy to alter
nis ma in interest from steamships to
railroads, build the empire of the New
York Central lines, and put together the
;argest fortune in the world; the man
who could bust a corrupt city council
and a vicious state legislature by his
~en ius at cornering stock, was also the
man who knew better than any other
10W to buy judges and lawmakers and
hOW to shove off on the public the
.heapes t and ta wdries t services to
enhance his profits."
Yet to many in his era-long before
heFTC, SEC, OSHA, and myriad other
~egulating bodies helped make business
as it was commonly conducted in the
Zeitgeist of the Commodore unthink­
able today-Cornelius Vanderbilt,
warts and all, was a hero. Par­
ents of the day pointed to the
old Commodore as an
eXample of the heights
to which hard work
[Quid take a boy of
modest
means .
Upon his dea th in
18 77, the New
I'o rk Times said,
Whenever his
keen eyes
aete ct­
cda
monop­
into
e of Cor­
During the War of 1812, Cornelius
was awarded a government contract to
supply nearby U.S. military operations
with provisions. In 1814, he built the
schooner Dread, and a year later added a
coasting vessel, the Charlotte. By 1818,
THE BEST FERRYMAN
with
several boats and $9,000 to his
ON STATEN ISLAND
name, he contracted to go to work as a
ornelius's great-great-great-grand­
steamboat captain at a salary of $1,000,
father, Jan Aertson, an illiterate less than he could make on his own.
farmer, immigrated to New York
The move was a shrewd one, howev­
as an indentured servant in 1650 from er. The steamboat industry was yet
the Dutch village of Bilt, whence the new, and Cornelius learned the business
name Vanderbilt was eventually adopt­
at someone else's expense. He learned,
for example, how
ed by the family in a
series of variations.
much pressure could
Corneli us's father,
be allowed to build up
UThe Commodore did
also named Cor­
before the boiler
nelius, was a Staten
the swearing and I
would explode, put­
Island farmer and fer­
ting passengers in
did the preaching, so
ryman from whom
peril of death by scald­
he inherited his
ing or flying shrapnel.
we never disagreed. "
reserve and brevity.
In 1824, Cornelius
His mother, Phebe
bought the st eamboat
Reverend John O. Choules, chaplain
Hand, is credited
Bellona and went into
on the North Star, when asked how he
wi th ins tilling in
business for himself.
got on with the Commodore
In 1829 he built his
Cornelius his traits
of thrift and industry.
first steamboat. By the
~.~
Shortly before his
time he rea ched the age of 40, n oted Cor­ 16th birthday, he and
his mother struck a bargain: If he would nelius Vanderbilt's official biographer, finish plowing a rocky eight-acre field W.A. Croffut, he was worth half a mil­
by his birthday, she would loan him lion dollars. "He had a score of vessels
$100 with which to buy a periauger, one in commission, most of which he had
of the low barges used to ferry passen­
built himself, and these were of so supe­
gers and provisions between Staten rior a character and so rapidly increas­
Island, Manhattan, and other localities.
ing in number that there was bestowed
A year later Cornelius had done well upon him by acclamation the title of
enough to return the money to his 'Commodore.' This honorary badge of
mother, along with an additional $1,000 distinction he wore all his life, and the
to be contributed to the family income. designation, first applied facetiously,
was at last universally employed as a
In the years that fol­
lowed he gained a serious recognition of his w o rth and
power.
reputation for get­
In most ways, even after he became
ting his passengers
to their destinations wealthy, the Commodore remained a
quickly and safely. simple man, though he did have an eye
The hard physical labor for horseflesh and kept a fin e stable.
helped build the physique for "He always despised show and ostenta­
which he was admired all his life. As tion in every form. No lackey attended
soon as he had earned enough him: he held the reins himself," wrote
money, he would add another, Croffut. "He ate sparingly at all times,
larger ferry to his fleet. Stat­
and of the plainest and most wh olesome
en Island supplied much of things; rarely took wine, and generally
the food tha t a growing retired at 10 o'clock."
Manhattan needed, and
Cornelius added to the THE GRAND TOUR
income earned from passen­
ger fares by trading, buying
evertheless, in 1853, when he was
in his fifties, Cornelius embarked
whatever might be for sale on
o n an u ndertaking t h a t drew
one end of his route and selling it
attention in th is country an d abroa d
a t the other.
At age 19 he married Sophia Johnson, when he set out with h is family on a
daughter of his mother's sister. Sophia grand tour of Europe on the North Star,
bore a striking resemblance to his a steam yacht built just for the occasion
and the largest ever afloat at the time.
mother. Cornelius's parents had dis­
The excursion, at a cost of h alf a mil­
couraged the marriage, fearing that chil­
dren born of the union of two first lion dollars, traveled to ports through­
out Europe, bypassing Rom e, which
cousins would be idiots.
C
I!
N
01 y, he pounced
~r ied
principle of low rates, founded upon
acute reasoning, was never violated, so
that in every way the public were the
gainers."
down upon the offenders
ndliterally drove them from the rivers.
\ or did he, when he vanquished them,
Itablish a monopoly of his own. H is
quently, into disastrous bankruptcies
passengers had anticipated as a high­
ligh t of the trip, w hen Cornelius and receiverships."
became angry with a delay caused by a
He began purchasing railroad stock
health officer. The 23 passengers were and consolidating small run-down lines
all fami ly members except for a chap­
in the New York area. By 1865, having
lain, a family p h ysician, an d t heir purchased controlling interest in the
Harlem Railr o ad
wives. When he
several years earli­
was asked how he
His last eight months were
er, he also con­
got on with the
Commodore, who
trolled the Hudson
long ones. On his better
River Railroad and
could be particu­
began merging
larl y curt wi th
days, he would curse
smaller lines to
members of the
clergy, the chap­
form the New
his physicians, calling
York Central Rail­
lain, the Reverend
them uold grannies"
road, of which he
John O. Choules,
became president
said, "The Com­
and throwing hot
in 1869.
modore did the
He held him­
swearing and I did
water bottles at
self answerable to
the preaching, so
we never dis­
no one, least of all
them. lWo died during
the public and the
agreed."
minority stock­
In
London,
their attendance of him.
George Peabody
holders ... he was
gave the party the
the directorate, he
use of his boxes at the opera at Covent was-in so many instances-the law, he
Garden. Not all of Europe was so gra­
was Dictator. The country gained by it,
cious, however. Clarice Stasz, author of he and the stockholders profited," wrote
The Vanderbilt Women, wrote that Minnegerode. "How he did it is another
while the British press noted that the matter. A matter of financial persua­
yacht's splendor exceeded that of the sion, of Legislatures mollified, and
queen's with its lavish appointments, courts of justice subsidized, of intrigue
" ... the English ruling class for the most and speculations in the pursuit of which
part avoided the ' vulgar' family . he was simply the most conspicuous
.. .Despite the impression the North and terrifying exponent of his era .... "
Star voyage made abroad and at home,
Cornelius could be terrifying to his
the Vanderbilts remained anathema to own family as well. His youngest son,
George Washington Vanderbilt, the only
old society. It would take another gener­
ation before the word 'Vanderbilt' was one for whom he showed any affection,
penned in an elegant hand on an invita­
most resembled his father in looks and
tion to a societal ball."
personality. A West Point cadet, George
died after contracting malaria during
the Ci viI War.
RIGHTING THE RAILROADS
A second son, Cornelius Jeremiah,
ornelius might have made his was an epileptic with a weakness for
entry into railroads sooner had it gambling who never gained his father's
not been for aNew Jersey train approval. "Since he ran away in his
accident in 1833 that left him seriously eighteenth year, and fled to California
injured and colored his attitude toward as a sailor, and his father retaliated by
the future of the locomotive. But by the locking him up as a lunatic, the two had
1860s, wrote Meade Minnigerode in been on the worst possibl e terms/'
Certain Rich Men , "after selling all his wrote Croffut. "Cornelius Jeremiah was
boats, when he came to examine these a .. .cadaverous-Iooking man ... nervous,
railroads with which the commerce and suspicious, petulant, and almost
traffic of the future were bound up, he continually in bad
health. He
found a labyrinth of little disconnected was known, more
roads, improvidently man­
aged, all cutting each other's
throats in a senseless compe­
tition which plunged them, so fre­
If .. •
C
th an once, to fall in a fit at a gamin
table, recover, and play on ./I More thd
once, the Commodore was heard to sa
of his second son, "I'd give a hundrt
dollars not t o h ave named him Cor
nelius./I
The oldest son, William HenrYI wa,
in his ea rl y years dismis se d by hi'
fa ther as a good for nothing/'
Ifbeetlehead/' and a "blatherskite. II Bur
William H enry had a head for figure'
and first impressed his father by makin.
a poor Staten Island farm profitable
When his eldest son got the better 0\
him in a business deal, Cornelius sat ur
and took notice. Eventually he made
William Henry an associate, giving him
increasing responsibility for the famih
businesses. In the end William Henn
gained the bulk of his father's fortune.
And it was William Henry who, in a
rather roundabout way, may have had
something to do with his father's agree­
ing to give the money t hat he did til
fund the university that today bears the
family name.
If
$100
the 10
hism
CORNELIU S AN D THE CLAIRVOYANTI
ike m illions of Americans of hi, time, the Commodore was " believer in occult practices anu enlisted the help of mediums to contac departe d fam ily members . Following his wife Sophia's death in 1868, according to Stasz, Cor­
nelius became involved ~ with the Claflin sisters, two med i ums w ho clai m e d t o be ab le t o materialize ectoplasm. Vic­
toria was ·said to have been clairvoyam from th e age of threei Tennessee l the younger, had once been billed as lithe Wonder Child" in a traveling medicint show. "Tennessee, with her petite, overripe
plumpn es s ... temp t e d m en wit h her
fl amboy an t ga iety an d proclivity to
stand very close to them during a con­
ve rs atio n, closer t han a lady should,'
wro te Stasz. "Adding to that forward­
n ess w ere her quick hands, which
would emphasize a phrase by pat
ting or caressi ng a gen tl eman
with m ost pleasing results."
The fam ily of Cornelius, how
ever, wa s n ot so pleased with
the res u l t s . T h e Co m modore
took to calling Tennessee his lit
tle sparrow, an d the Vanderbilt
children fear ed that their agin
fath er w ould be vuln erable tc
th i s f or tune h u nter 'l
• • • advances. Stasz maintainec
t ha t C orn eli us even pro·
posed m arr i ag e to Ten
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ nessee but that she refus~
VANDERBILT MAGAZINE / Summ er 1994 / 8
C ornE
coura
L
him. In
Commo
especiaL
a more
amorow
from di~
(Mrs. F
daughte
Conkin,
tory at
Ivy: A 1
si ty, " ..
t he par
regardl(
friend, '
ding nal
Befor
and FTC
eloped'
had rna
mother l
Auch
Pron1
Sons,
Conk
raph}
ofTe:
Croff
and
Clarl<
Hoyt
Fortu
MacI
derb
. gaming
.ore than
rd to say
hundred
im Cor­
nry, was
1 by his
ling , " a
ite. " But
r figures
T making
)fitable.
Jetter of
1S sat up
le made
ring him
e family
n Henry
fortune.
ho, in a
lave had
"s agree­
e did to
)ears the
Cornelius Vanderbilt's mother, Phebe Hand (center), dis ­
couraged her son from going to sea, instead loaning him
$100 with which to purchase his first barge. His first wife,
the long-suffering Sophia Johnson (left), was a daughter of
his mother's sister, and mother of the Commodore's 13
children. Cornelius also looked to his mother's side of the
family when he married a second time: Frank Armstrong
Crawford (right), 45 years his junior, was the great-grand­
daughter of Samuel Hand, Phebe's brother. Frank helped
influence the Commodore to endow Vanderbilt.
JYA N TS
of his
was a
ces and
. contact
lS
f/;;-'d/
lrvoyant
see, the
as "the
ledicine
overripe
ith her
.vity to
g a con­
h ould,"
orward­
, which
~ by pat­
tleman
ts."
s, how­
~ d with
modo re
his lit­
Iderbilt
lr aging
'able t o
nter's
ntained
~n p r o ­
o T en ­
refused
him. In any case, in early 1869 the
Commodore's children, William Henry
especially, thought it appropriate to find
amore suitable outlet for their father's
amorous intentions, and arranged a visit
irom distant Alabama cousins, Martha
IMrs . Robert L. J Crawford and her
uaughter. The daughter, wrote Paul K.
Conkin, Distinguished Professor of His­
tOry at Vanderbilt, in Gone with the
Ivy: A Biography of Vanderbilt Univer­
iity, " ... because of a foolish promise by
the parents to name their first child,
regardless of sex, after a close family
friend, gained the unlikely and forbid­
ding name of Frank Armstrong."
Before the year was out, Cornelius
and Frank-43 years his junior-had
eloped to Canada. When asked why he
had married the daughter and not the
mother, who was closer to his own age,
the Commodore, according to Stasz,
responded, "Oh, no! If I had married
her, Frank would have gone off and mar­
ried someone else. Now I have them
both." Handsome, well-educated, and
refined, Frank was a great comfort to
the Commodore in his declining years
and even met with some success in
reducing his legendary cursing.
FRIENDLY PERSUASION
t was at Frank's request that Cor­
nelius later received another visitor
from the South, the Right Reverend
Holland Nimmons McTyeire, a
Methodist bishop and a nephew by mar­
riage to Mrs. Crawford. He came to
New York in 1873, ostensibly for an
unnamed surgical procedure, but also,
wrote Conkin, with the likely hope of
I
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Auchincloss, Louis. The Vanderbilt Era:
Profiles of a Gilded Age. Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1989.
Conkin, Paul K. Gone with the Ivy: A Biog­
raphy of Vanderbilt University. University
of Tennessee Press. 1985.
Croffut, William Augustus. The Vanderbilts
and the Story of Their Fortune. Belford,
Clarke and Co., 1886.
Hoyt, Edwin P. The Vanderbilts and Their
Fortunes. Doubleday &. Co., Inc., 1962.
MacDowell, Dorothy K. Commodore Van­
derbilt and His Family: A Biographical
Account of the Descendants of Cornelius
and Sophia Johnson Vanderbilt. Taylor Pub­
lishing Co., 1989.
King, Robert B. The Vanderbilt Homes. Riz­
zoli International Publications, 1989.
Minnegerode, Meade . Certain Rich Men.
Books For Libraries Press, 1970.
Robbins, Peggy. "The Commodore and His
Money./I American History Illustrated (May
1984): 5.
Stasz, Clarice. The Vanderbilt Women:
Dynasty of Wealth, Glamour, and Tragedy.
Saint Martin's Press, 1991.
VANDERBILT MAGAZINE / Summer 1994 / 9
meeting Cornelius Vanderbilt and per­
suading him to help fund his dream, a
Methodist university in the Civil War­
ravaged South.
Frank and the bishop must have
broached the subject of funding a
Methodist university with some trepi­
dation. The only time in his life Cor­
nelius had given a sizeable amount of
money had been, at Frank's urging, for a
New York church. Wrote Croffut: "[The
Commodore's] most persistent appli­
cants for money were clergymen, and
for them he felt an aversion not
unmixed with contempt. As a rule he
dismissed them abruptly, sometimes
rudely, and once, when he had been
annoyed persistently by a needy parson,
he presented him with a free ticket to
the West Indies and never heard of him
again."
Thanks to Frank's advance work, the
bishop fared better, and never even
directly asked the Commodore for
money. Conkin wrote that Cornelius
Vanderbilt " ... was seeking a suitable
beneficiary for some of his money, a
belated claim to a type of immortality.
Sheer emulation of other wealthy men,
if nothing else, led him in this direc­
tion. McTyeire needed only to air the
plans and give vent to his own enthusi­
asm. Soon Vanderbilt was intrigued,
even fascinated."
Cornelius originally promised a gift of
no less than $500,000, and by the time
of his death the sum approached one
million dollars. And none too soon. If
the Claflin sisters had had their way,
Jan ­
of
0­
play­
)n,
lor
Inies.
is
1an­
and
him­
ItD far
cd
y
b
ke
he
de­
ner
ica­
er­
ke a
an
ym­
n
1m
ul­
5,
the
rd
1S
l1g
Jut
~
is
reI
ngs
t.
'an
Cornelius might have given the money
to aid the cause of women's suffrage.
The Commodore had continued to have
contact with the pair after his second
marriage, giving them stock tips and
setting them up as the country's first
"lady stockbrokers" in a lavish marble
office where clients sipped cham­
pagne from silver buckets. Victoria,
an advocate of free love, an­
nounced herself as a candidate for
U,S. president, long before women
won even the right to vote. But by
1874, the sisters had fallen on hard
ti mes and , now active in the
women's movement of the day,
appealed to their old friend to
become the "Patron Saint of this
great cause." This time it was the
Commodore's turn to refuse a pro­
posal.
The Commodore remembered the
Claflin sisters by providing a trust fund
to help them advance the cause of spiri­
tualism; Tennessee was also bequeathed
a scan til y clad life-size painting of
Venus. William Henry paid the pair an
undisclosed sum of money to keep
father's business. His appetite had failed
him. Dyspepsia had assailed him. His
sleep was broken. Pleasure had lost its
zest. In eight years he had lived 20.
Constant worry had laid the foundation
of arterial changes that resulted in a
rupture of a large vessel in his brain and
sudden death.
"He felt a premonition of his
doom, and he said to his family:
'The care of $200,000,000 is too
great a load for any brain or back
to bear. It is enough to kill a man. I
have no son whom I am willing to
afflict with the terrible burden.
.. .So when I lay down this heavy
responsibility, I want my sons to
divide it, and s hare the worry
which it will cost to keep it.' "
During the few years left to
him after his father's death,
William Henry carried out his
father's
wishes concerning the uni­
FORTUNE AND MISFORTUNE
versi ty, even adding to the
n 1876 , the 82-y ear-old Cor­
amount. Noted Conkin: "All in all,
nelius became mortally ill. His
the two Vanderbilts gave almost
last eight months were long
$1.2 million to launch the new
ones-for him and everyone around
university. The amount is not
him. On his better days, he would
nearly as significant as the fact
curse his physicians, calling them
tha t they were willing to give
Horace Greeley wrote that the Commodore's
"old grannies" and throwing hot
McTyeire a blank check for the
Uphysiognomy, one of the finest in America,
water bottles at them. Two died
capital expenditures that he
has never yet been rendered worthily by any
during their attendance of him .
believed necessary for a successful
photograph, bronze, or picture. t,
Always a bad patient, he had once
university .... Vanderbilt University
refused his doctor's recommenda­
began as an exceptionally privi­
tion to drink champagne for an
leged institution, rich beyond any
mternal ailment, saying, "Champagne! I them out of the debacle that followed comparable university save the very
an't afford champagne! A bottle every when Cornelius Jeremiah and three of oldest private colleges in the North­
morning! Oh, I guess sody water '11 do!"
his sisters contested the will on the east. ... No other Southern Methodist
At one point, when the crowd of grounds that their father had insane institution had an endowment of even
reporters keeping a 24-hour vigil outside delusions and was of unsound mind. $100,000 or a physical plant worth over
his bedroom prematurely reported his The court battle, lasting more than a $125,000."
death, he rose from his bed to give them year, included testimony from a proces­
On the 200th anniversary of his birth,
apiece of his mind and had to be physi­ sion of spiritualists who testified that it is tempting to wonder what Cornelius
cally restrained. "If all the devils in hell the country's richest man had relied on Vanderbilt would have thought of the
were concentrated in me I could not their advice in financial dealings and university that his money has wrought,
have suffered any more," the dying man other aspects of his life.
and of the fact that it is now in the
said, And after his death on January 4,
Theories of phrenology, another popu­ midst of a campaign to raise a sum sev­
1877, wrote Croffut, " ... doctors record­ lar notion of the day, were also brought eral times his entire fortune, which in
ed that he had 'scarce a sound organ in in to explain the Commodore's will. its day nearly equaled the reserves of
his body,' was 'a dyspeptic through life,' Jeremiah S. Black, counsel for the con­ the U.S. Treasury. He would have noted
land] was a victim of almost every testants, said, "Cornelius Vanderbilt's with interest, of course, the college
known intestinal, heart, kidney, liver bump of acquisitiveness, as a phrenolo­ named for his contemporary George
and stomach disorder .... "
gist would call it, was in a chronic state Peabody. One wonders how a man with
Cornelius Vanderbilt was buried in of inflammation... morally and intellec­ such a personal treasure trove of epi­
the family vault on Staten Island, leav­ tually his mind was a howling wilder­ thets would have looked on Project Dia­
ing 63 descendants to mourn his passing ness."
logue and political correctness and a
."and the terms of his will. Wishing for
In the end, the will was largely left Divinity School that produces ever
his fortune to remain intact, he had left intact. The contest over it was the first more members of the clergy, but, in the
nearly all of his estate to a single heir. of many lawsuits and rifts that left fam­ spirit of the times, certainly does not
Of the $105 million he left behind, $90 ily members scarred and estranged. Cor­ call them clergym en.
million went to William Henry and $7.5 nelius Jeremiah fatally shot himself in
One wonders, too, how the Com­
million to William Henry's four sons. 1882. William Henry survived his father modore, who carried most of the busi­
Other siblings received relatively small by only eight years. In that time he ness of his vast empire in his head,
amounts, either in trust or cash or both. managed to double his father's holdings, would have felt about a business school
that requires advanced knowledge of
Frank received half a million in cash, but the stress took its toll.
2,000 shares of New York Central
Croffut wrote that William Henry's accounting and offers courses in ethics.
tack, and the New York house in " ... health and strength had declined If Cornelius Vanderbilt was right, his
which they had lived.
from the day that he took charge of his spirit knows more than we think.
I
VANDERBILT MAGAZINE / Summ er 1994 / 11