Connecticut western news., 1875-07-09
ARafLRoAD KING.

.udiUto3 iSiIS4h Jdt no atBL f dolk laaL-A sAfLR0AD a KING. sEist@ 1,i ]. VI He'd ssnd 10 9ma9 Lalall noon 1i , g'eAS ; |, 'iI Al Few Incideptsin she fbife sfsConsmodor al ,i sbno,ro rl,gr vapderhtits mol G3d" bas From lengthy article on Gpmmodpr'
 Vanderbilt in the New, York oSass VI
 glean the following incidents .sa3 l6i staia,j sJ dniaVanderbiH is now eighty -bneE Nears d old, yet he looks soz fresh that ad gooS
 many men of sixty might well envy him
 His powerful ls7 frame has not suffered
 either from hard work OF the ekcitement I of financial speculations. -
 The Con1mod lore B affather. a we'll -to-do land owner of Staten Island. rented his estate in small lots toEmarket gardeners,
 and ran sail boat in which hecArried the
 gardeners produce to New York at Q
 good round tariff, thus makingIhis, land pay double tribute. He iwasyery anxious | that his son should acquires good edu- | catdon and etrove to excite the bows amihtion in that dire ecatfiomn catfm m but 1t q Cor nelesf didnotFtakelk lkiBdlSo6 books. He bwas 2 healthy and powerful young ani- ma, exhibiting q greater taste for rob
 blng melon patches and punching the heads of the com nanions, who dared Cd \ oppose him than for parsing.. 10 d9G51 ' 1Before hsa was fully sixteen years of
 age helbegged his father to apu urchase 8 boat for him that be might ,saIh his own 1 living, and began ito run in ysen petition I with that of his governor, i, So, well did
 he manage the businAss that within two I years he became sole owner of two more
 boats and part owner and captain of a third, which Iwas the biggest vessel. of the kind in the harbor. u This precocious success, of the self made ship owner was ! determined not more by his natural
 abilities and hard work than by the most,
 rigid parsimony. The lad was never
 kne~T to spennd upon hindself a cent bmoFe thah was strictly necessary to keep | thadyaband soul. sS f0getherG Interest bearing investment was the,only nsehe Knew Tor moneY.s S agoia gai sbt we A the early, age of nineteen he mar; Tied his cousin, Miss Sophie J. :. ohnson,
 of Port Richnond, and settled down in New York. q She kept for him subse- nauenty a lhotebata New Brunswick, N.
 S,, bore him thirteen ,childrens and to the day of her death, in 1868, he placed implicit confidence in her. ,,i..,s
 At the age of twenty three Vanderbilt found himself master Of 8 small fleet of lsailing yyessels,p and the possessor of SIC, GOO in hard caslagsdT The invention of Robert Fulton vas just then coming into, practical use, and the State of New York had given to him and his, friend, Chan
 eellofs Livingston, a monopoly of steam. hnavigation eohl the waters within its
 boundary II Vanderbilt, ; who was always strongly opposed ito all monbpolies, saw
 at once the immense adyantageso of steam navigation, and chafed at the restriction. He made himself thoroughly acquainted with the details Of the new invention, and while pursuing his inquiries in this direction, made;the acquaintance of Mr.f Gibbons, who was, running, q line of ves-
 selsbetween New York and Philade elphia. This new friend soon had built diminu- tive steambo8t for his line between this city and T Nsws 3 BrunBwick,,i and made Vanderbilt captain of. it. with e salary of $1, 900 per lyear,u Liyingstono d. Fulton
 appealed against Gibbons as onewho had
 infringed on then monopoly, but after
 long litigation Chief Justice Marshall, of the United States rSupremegC Court des
 cided that no State could grant exclusive privileges on any of the great waters of the country, iand othe field was thrown open to all nomer8. ooM .d . u .1 sidT It was aboutthis time that thsfo oundas
 tion of the colossal fortune pf fqY Yander-
 bilt began to be laid, In 1929, he, was, able to leave the service of Gibbons and
 to become himself one of the largest
 ship builders and ship owners! He had
 lines of steambo oats on the North river, on Long Island sound; ! on ythei lcoa ast of
 Maine, on the Delaware, and began to
 build steamships for transatlantic vovaT \ ges, of which the 'Prometheus and ,the, Vanderbilto were the largest and the best known. u39d 9Yal 3W .92aIlY silj A ''i" .sb In l84Ss when the California rush De- gan, Vanderbilt had 3, large, amount of available money and g number of ,vesE, sells. which enabled him to open, 8 new route of his own, in opposition to the D United States Mail Steamship Company and the Pacific Mail Steamship Com pany, which waalthen in it's infancy This California route induced VandeTbilt to take part in g flibustering expedition
 in Nicaragua, and his plain Dutch conn mon sense secured him q complete vic tory in theI overthrow of the adVenturer who oc assumed the presidency of Mica ragua and his flight from the country. And among all these, occupations Van derbi1t found time, to build the steam yacht % North Star, and to undertake
 with her a cruise to cEuropG Spi"Y ,Ta91 U 0It zwasS about 1864 that he finally abandoned the domain of Neptune, and
 his accumulated fortune at that time was
 estiilmated at, forty million sdo dollars lars UT It must not be supposed, however, that he oto6k to railways only when he left the 5 shipping trade. h2On the contrary, 0 he with drew his capital from maritime oper7, ationss,i step by step, long before he re
 tired himself H from these pursuits, By, means of lending money to the, pfes1-;
 dent tf the New York and New Haven railroad he became part owner of that road Rs early as 1S44. In the next yea! he began .sto buy up the siock of the
 Harlem roads of which he and hisfamily. ya subsequently, became al almost the selsr owners by means of corner, which. he
 successfully manipulated twenty years
 later, on which occasion he sdteezed' out of Wall street all of the stock which was to be got, and something like $5,- O09, 900 profits besides gdt lgfW i d5idy
 The Erie road, under the manage
 ment of Drew and Gould, also largely
 contributed to Vanderbilt's fortune, after long litigation, during which his
 two opponents had to intrench them
 selves against the laws of the State of
 New York, at Taylor's Hotel in Jersey | City. .G-t4T roi Yl1I GCE 13h3.sd
 ys Later on came the acquisition of the
 Hudson River and the New York Cen
 tral railroads, and the consolidation of
 these two great companies, and ulti-
 niately the great stbear" raid on Lake Shore, uwhich resulted in his finding
 himself the possessor of some seventy
 thousand shares of that stock, and of
 something like $10, ,O0O, 900 profits. ..r.a, The total amount of Vanderbilt's for tune at the present time can hardly be