USA > New York > Portrait gallery of the Chamber of Commerce of the state of New-York : catalogue and biographical sketches > Part 20
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Resolved, That without recounting Mr. BROWN's mani- fold virtues, but sharing with the church, with society, with the community at large in a common loss, and par-
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taking of a common grief, we will send to the family of the deceased a copy of these resolutions as a token of our respect for the departed, and of our sincere condolence for the bereaved.
CORNELIUS VANDERBILT.
CORNELIUS VANDERBILT was of Holland-Dutch stock, and his remarkable career makes him one of the most prominent figures in the commercial history of the second half century of the Republic. He was born near Staple- ton, Staten Island, New-York, May 27th, 1794. His father was CORNELIUS VANDERBILT ; and he was a great- grandson of JACOB VAN DER BILT, whose ancestors first came to this country from Holland in 1650, and settled on Long Island.
Like many of the men who have had a successful business career in New-York, his early life was spent upon a farm; but the energy and enterprise which were the dis- tinguishing characteristics of his career, impelled him, at the age of sixteen, to more venturesome pursuits. He seems to have instinctively foreseen that the great opportunity in the development of the new country was the business of transportation. He began. by carrying laborers across New-York Bay, from New-York to the fortifications at the Narrows, in a small sail-boat ; and in two years he had become the owner of several small craft, and captain of a larger one. During the war of 1812 his venturesome spirit made him better known, and gave him greater income. He furnished supplies by night to two forts near New-York, and was selected by the Government officers for expedi- tions which required special skill and daring. At the age of nineteen he married SOPHIA JOHNSON ; and on his twenty-first birthday he was the proprietor of an estab- lished business and the owner of a capital which amounted to nine thousand dollars. He invested this in the purchase of a part interest of a steamboat running from New-York
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to New Brunswick, New-Jersey, and became her captain. In seven years from this time, and about 1824, he had secured full control of the most important steamboat line running out of New-York, known as the "Gibbons" line; and, three years later, he leased the ferries between New- York and Elizabethport, New-Jersey. From this period began the expansion of operations which continued with- out interruption or failure until the close of his life. He soon had steamboats running upon the Hudson River, and on Long Island Sound to Hartford, Providence, Norwich and New-Haven. He practically controlled for many years water transportation between New-York and Hudson River and New-England points.
In 1849 he made a new departure. The discovery of gold in California had led to immense immigration to the Pacific coast. To meet and stimulate this he established a steam- ship route from New-York to San Francisco, crossing the Isthmus at Panama. Railroading was then in its infancy, and the plains and mountains between California and the borders of civilization in the East an unexplored territory, filled with hostile Indians. The three steamers which he placed upon the Atlantic, and four upon the Pacific side, gave him a control of the business between the Atlantic seaports and the Pacific slope. In 1855 he established a Trans-Atlantic line, but, after a trial of six years, aban- doned it. During the Civil War, in 1851, when the whole country was alarmed at the prospective damage to our sea- coast cities from the rebel ram "Merrimac," he presented the steamship " Vanderbilt"-then the finest steamship on the ocean-to the Government. In recognition of this gift, at the close of the war, Congress voted him a gold medal. In 1864 he became convinced that the business of transportation by water had culminated, and the opportu- nities of the future were in railroads, their operation and extension. He therefore disposed of all his interests in steamboats and steamships. His prominence and distinc- tion during these many years as the owner and commander of a large merchant fleet had given him the popular title of "Commodore," by which he is best known.
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It was characteristic of Commodore VANDERBILT that whatever he determined to do he entered upon at once. He immediately secured a control of the stock of the New- York and Harlem Railroad Company, and became its President ; and the next year he also bought a majority of the stock of the Hudson River Company and assumed its management. He was the first to discover that the success of a railroad line was in the control of the direct connections upon which it must rely for its business. He, therefore, immediately began the purchase of the stock of the New- York Central ; and in 1869 consolidated it with the Hudson River Railroad, forming what is now known as the New- York Central and Hudson River Railroad. He became the first President of this corporation. He had practically rebuilt the Harlem Road, and he now turned his attention to the improvement of the consolidated line; under his management two additional tracks were constructed west of Albany ; the Grand Central Depot, St. John's Park Freight Station, and the Grain Elevators on the Hudson River at Sixty-fifth street were erected ; and the magnifi- cent entrance into the City, by viaduct and tunnel, through Fourth Avenue, laid out and completed. To secure the permanence and growth of the New-York Central's busi- ness with the vast commerce distributed at Chicago, he purchased a controlling interest in the Lake Shore, Canada Southern and Michigan Central Railroads; and these made the New-York line by the New-York. Central and the north and south shores of the lake to Chicago.
The Commodore gave fifty thousand dollars to the Rev. CHARLES F. DEEMS to purchase the Church of the Strangers in this City and for its mission work. He founded the VANDERBILT University at Nashville, Tennessee, to assist in the educational development of the South, and endowed it with a million of dollars. His fortune at the time of his death was generally estimated at one hundred million dollars, all of which he left to his eldest son, WILLIAM HENRY, except four million dollars, which he bequeathed to his daughters, and eleven million dollars to WILLIAM HENRY's four sons. Mr. VANDERBILT was a very hand-
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some man, and one of the most striking figures in his old age in New-York. He died in this City on the 4th of January, 1877, at the age of eighty-two years, retaining his physical vigor and mental energy to the last.
WILLIAM H. VANDERBILT.
WILLIAM H. VANDERBILT was born in New-Brunswick, New-Jersey, May 8th, 1821. He was the eldest son of Com- modore VANDERBILT, and was educated at the Columbia Grammar School. He began his business career early in life. At the age of seventeen he entered the office of the then famous firm of bankers and brokers of which DANIEL DREW was the head. He married when he was twenty Miss KIS- SAM, the daughter of a well-known clergyman of the Dutch Reformed Church. Close attention to his duties in the office and over-work impaired his health to such an extent that in 1842 he settled upon a farm on Staten Island which belonged to his father. It was here that the sterling qualities which afterwards won his success were first mani- fested. The Commodore had strong opinions of the value of self-reliance, and the discipline which only comes from working one's own way in the world. WILLIAM H. was left entirely to his own resources, and accomplished the difficult task of not only earning a living off his farm, but of making it profitable. He also became active in political affairs and matters of general interest on the island, and after a short time was widely known and re- spected as an energetic, public spirited and successful citizen. The Staten Island Railroad Company became em- barrassed, and Mr. VANDERBILT was selected as the one best qualified to manage its business and bring it out of its difficulties. By general consent he was appointed Receiver, and began his career as a railway officer and director. He speedily developed superior business ability, and it was not long before he had liberated the Company from its troubles, and put it upon a paying basis. The Commodore
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was so much impressed with this demonstrated capacity that he called him from the island and placed upon him very large responsibilities. He appointed WILLIAM H. Vice-President and Executive Officer of the New-York and Harlem, and afterwards of the Hudson River Railroad. The situation was a difficult and trying one, as much was expected both by the public and his father. But in a few years the railway men of the country recognized in him a railroad manager of unusual talent. Upon the consolida- tion of the Hudson River and New-York Central, he was called to the direction of the affairs of the new Company, and entered upon activities which resulted in his becoming one of the most important and powerful factors in the railway system of the United States.
The death of his father left him in control of the lines between New-York and Chicago by the New-York Central, and of the Lake Shore on the south and the Michigan Central and Canada Southern on the north shore of the lake. He inherited the bulk of his father's vast fortune, and immediately bent his energies and resources to extend- ing and strengthening the system which was to honor and perpetuate the name of VANDERBILT. By securing a con- trolling interest in the Chicago and North Western and the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha, he reached the great wheat belt of the Northwest, and covered the territory between Chicago and the Missouri River, and on towards the Pacific. The West Shore and Nickle Plate roads had been constructed parallel with the Central and Lake Shore, and threatened the serious impairment and possible ruin of both properties ; but he first successfully fought this unjustifiable invasion of territory fully and satisfactorily served by existing roads, and then purchased the one for the Central and the other for the Lake Shore. Time has demonstrated the wisdom of this policy.
Soon after the consolidation of the New-York Central and Hudson River Roads, Mr. VANDERBILT became im- pressed with the importance of a permanent entrance into the City of New-York, and a central terminus which would be equal to the large and rapidly increasing passenger traffic
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of the line. The Grand Central Depot was constructed, and connected by a depressed road, tunnel and viaduct, with the bridge across the Harlem River. By this improvement the New-York Central secured the unequalled advantages of four tracks into the heart of the City, and a station so located as to give the Company the best position of any of the Trunk lines for passenger business between the West and the Metropolis. This work will remain an enduring monument to his wisdom and foresight.
The labor strikes upon the railroads of the country, in 1877, were the most serious ever known. They stopped the movement of most lines, suspended travel and para- lyzed business. Mr. VANDERBILT managed, with great skill and diplomacy, to keep his roads open.
The Granger excitement and the increasing agitation for restrictive legislation against railways convinced Mr. VAN- DERBILT that it was a mistake for one man to own the con- trolling interest in any great transportation line. It aroused antagonism and invited attacks. By one of the best managed and most successful combinations ever formed, he was able, in a single transaction, to sell two hundred and fifty thousand shares of the stock of the New-York Central and Hudson River Railroad Company for thirty millions of dollars. In 1883 he resigned his official positions and transferred the supervision of the VANDERBILT system to his sons, CORNELIUS and WILLIAM K. VANDERBILT. CORNELIUS was made Chairman of the Board of Directors of the New-York Central and Hudson River and the Mich- igan Central Railroads, and WILLIAM K. was Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern, and subsequently, also, of the New-York, Chi- cago and St. Louis Railroad.
Mr. VANDERBILT was generous and public spirited. In 1884 he presented to the College of Physicians and Sur- geons of the City of New-York five hundred thousand dollars, for the purchase of land and the erection of build- ings. This gift contributed largely to the higher education of physicians, a subject in which he was deeply interested. He also gave five hundred thousand dollars to the VANDER-
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BILT University, which had been generously endowed by his father. He gave the money which secured from the Egyptian Government the gift of the Obelisk, and brought it to New-York and placed it in Central Park.
Mr. VANDERBILT died in this City on December 8th, 1SS5. By his will he left a million of dollars to various charities, sundry bequests to friends, ten millions of dollars to each of his eight children, and the residue of his estate to his sons, CORNELIUS and WILLIAM K. VANDERBILT.
HANSON K. CORNING.
HANSON KELLY CORNING, oldest son of EPHRAIM CORNING, was born in Hartford, Conn., on the 9th of July, 1810. He was a direct descendant from SAMUEL CORNING, who came from England about 1630, and settled in Bev- erly, Massachusetts, where he was chosen one of the selectmen in 1665. EPHRAIM CORNING removed his family to Alexandria, Virginia, while HANSON was yet a child, and there he grew up and received his education.
At eighteen years of age he entered the office of his uncle, EDWARD CORNING, who was engaged in the hard- ware business at Albany, New-York, where he remained for three years, when he was sent, in 1831, by the concern of E. & L. CORNING, (composed of his father and uncle, who had established themselves in New-York, and were among the earliest American merchants to engage in trade . with Northern Brazil,) to Para, Brazil, charged with look- ing after their interests and enlarging their business. He remained in Para for four years, during which period he consigned to New-York what was probably the first ship- ment of India rubber in the shape of shoes and toys. They were made by the natives in the India rubber forests ; were very unwieldy in form, but possessed of extraordinary wearing qualities, and were the forerunners of the impor- tant business now carried on in India rubber boots and shoes.
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In 1835 Mr. CORNING returned to New-York to take the place vacated by the retirement of his uncle, LEONARD CORNING, from the concern, which then became EPHRAIM CORNING & SON, and established at No. 74 South Street, where they and their successors remained for more than thirty years. In the same year he married EMMA B. DOR- RANCE- a union which continued a source of great happi- ness until the end of his life.
The discovery by CHARLES GOODYEAR of the process for vulcanizing India rubber stimulated the manufacture of India rubber goods, especially boots and shoes, to an enor- mous extent, and the importing of Para rubber in crude form gradually increased, until it became a great trade. The facilities which Mr. CORNING had established' during his residence in Para enabled the firm to hold a leading position in the business as it developed, and under the old firm name of EPHRAIM CORNING & SON until 1849, (when his father retired,) and his own name, H. K. CORNING, until 1859, when the concern was changed to H. K. CORNING & SON by the admission of his son, EPHRAIM L. CORNING, he maintained the supremacy as importer of Para rubber, and extended his business to Maranham, Rio de Janeiro and Rio Grande do Sul. In 1867, by reason of impaired health, he retired from active business.
Prosperity followed Mr. CORNING's business career from its beginning, except during the panic of 1837, when EPHRAIM CORNING & SON were embarassed, owing to the magnitude of their business, and were forced to make a compromise with their creditors. In less than five years afterwards they paid every creditor in full, principal and . interest-an action so rare in business records as to be worthy of mention.
From the time of Mr. CORNING's retirement he devoted himself, as he had long been doing, to philanthropic work of very varied character, not only among institutions in New-York and elsewhere, but privately in hundreds of households, where his kindly interest and ready help lightened the cares and increased the comforts of the needy.
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Mr. CORNING was elected a member of the Chamber of Commerce March 2d, 1854, and continued his connection with it up to the time of his retirement from business.
In the simple Christian hope in which he had lived he died on the 22d day of April, 1878, in this City, leaving behind him the blessed memory of the just. His wife sur- vived him for precisely six months.
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
GEORGE WASHINGTON, the " Father of his Country," was born in Washington Parish, Westmoreland County, Virginia, near the junction of Pope's Creek with the Po- tomac River, February 22, (February 11, Old Style, ) 1732. He was the son of AUGUSTINE WASHINGTON. AUGUSTINE WASHINGTON was a wealthy planter, and was twice married ; his first wife, JANE BUTLER, bore him four children, of whom, two sons, LAWRENCE and AUGUSTINE, reached ma- turity. The second wife, MARY BALL, brought her husband six children, of whom GEORGE was the eldest. His father owned two or more large plantations, and removed, in GEORGE's early childhood, to the one situated in Stafford County, nearly opposite Fredericksburg. Before he had reached the age of twelve years his father died. He inherited the Stafford County property, and his elder half-brother, LAWRENCE, received the large estate on Hunting Creek, afterward known as Mount Vernon. His early education was somewhat defective, but he showed a strong predilection for mathematics, for which he had a private teacher. His half-brother, LAWRENCE, was his guardian, and on leaving school, at the age of fifteen, he resided for some months with his brother at Mount Vernon. LAWRENCE had mar- ried a daughter of WILLIAM FAIRFAX, the wealthiest planter in Virginia, and for some time President of the Executive Council of the Colony. GEORGE was inclined to a military or naval career, and, probably, through the influence of LAWRENCE's friends, a midshipman's warrant
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in the English Navy was procured for him, but the mother opposed it so strongly that he relinquished his purpose. The next year, however, he was appointed Surveyor to the immense estates of Baron Lord FAIRFAX, that eccentric nobleman having determined to take up his residence in America, and being then on a visit to his kinsman, WILLIAM FAIRFAX. The task was an arduous one for a boy of sixteen years, but young WASHINGTON gladly accepted it, and for the next three years he roughed it on the frontier, encountering many dangers and hardships.
In 1751 the Virginia Militia were put under training for active service against France, and WASHINGTON, although only nineteen years of age, was appointed Adjutant, with the rank of Major. In September of that year he accom- panied his brother, LAWRENCE, who was in failing health, on a voyage to the Barbadoes. They returned early in 1752, and LAWRENCE, dying soon after, named his half brother as one of the executors of his great estate, and made him the presumptive heir of the Mount Vernon pro- perty, which soon after came into his possession, by the death of LAWRENCE's infant daughter.
When Lieutenant Governor DINWIDDIE arrived in Vir- ginia, in 1752, the militia was re-organized and divided into four military districts. The northern district was the most important of these, and of this, GEORGE WASHINGTON, then just twenty-one years old, was commissioned by the Governor, Adjutant-General. In November of the same year he was sent with only one companion on the perilous enterprise of penetrating to the French post of Le Boeuf, on French Creek, near Lake Erie, and of demanding, in the name of the King of England, that the French should withdraw from this territory. To reach this pointit was necessary that they should traverse, for hundreds of miles, an unexplored region, inhabited only by Indian tribes known to be hostile to the English. The expedition was, of course, unavailing, and its only good result was, that WASHINGTON's report to Governor DINWIDDIE was sent by him to London, and published. The Assembly of Virginia authorized the Exec- utive to raise a regiment of three hundred men, to maintain
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by force the asserted rights of the British Crown over the territory claimed. The command of this expedition was given to Colonel JOSHUA FRY. At the urgent request of his friends, WASHINGTON was commissioned Lieutenant Colonel of the regiment. The expedition met with varied fortunes, but not being sustained by promised reinforce- ments, and Colonel FRY having died on the route, Colonel WASHINGTON, after defeating an advanced party of the French and intrenching himself in a fort, (Fort Necessity, ) which he had thrown up on the "Great Meadows," was obliged, being attacked by an overwhelming force of French and Indians, to capitulate and surrender his artillery, July 4, 1754. In the winter of 1754-55, orders were received for "settling the rank of his Majesty's forces, when serving with the provincials in North America." These orders were so insulting to the provincial officers that WASHINGTON and many others indignantly resigned their commissions. WASHINGTON retired to Mount Vernon. Here, in the spring of 1755, he was found by General EDWARD BRAD- DOCK, who had been commissioned to make a formal cam- paign against the French on the Ohio. General BRADDOCK had heard of WASHINGTON'S services in the vicinity of Pittsburg, and of his thorough knowledge of the theater of operations, and he endeavored to persuade him to join the expedition. WASHINGTON would not consent to go in any other capacity than as a volunteer aid-de-camp. The result of this campaign need not here be particularized. He saved the shattered remnants of the fine army, and brought them off the field, where BRADDOCK and all his chief officers had fallen. The Virginia Assembly passed a bill directing the enlistment of sixteen new companies for the defence of the province, and commissioned WASHINGTON as Commander-in-chief of all the forces raised and to be raised, in the Colony, with authority to appoint his own officers. The next three years were years of many disappointments to Colonel WASHINGTON. The British Government sent over Lord LOUDON to be Commander-in-chief of the British forces in the Colonies. WASHINGTON laid before him a detailed account of the
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operations thus far undertaken against the French on the Ohio, and specified the causes of their failure. He urged an active campaign with larger forces. Lord LOUDON would not listen to his plea. "Canada " he said, "was the point to be attacked," and so far was he from giving any aid to the Virginia provincial troops, that besides requiring from them their full quota for the northern expedition, he ordered them to protect their own frontier, and to send aid to South Carolina, against Indian raids in that colony. WASHINGTON, almost in despair, urged upon the Virginia Assembly the enactment of a more stringent militia law, and a large increase in the number of her regular troops. These measures the Assembly was unwil- ling to grant, and he was compelled to defend an Indian frontier of about four hundred miles, with a very inade- quate force. In 1757, Gen. ABERCROMBIE succeeded Lord LOUDON, who had accomplished nothing. The new General committed the control of the Middle and Southern Provinces to Gen. FORBES, who decided to undertake an expedition against Fort Duquesne. WASHIINGTON urged a quick ad- vance over the old Braddock road, and an early campaign, but Gen. FORBES determined to construct a new road far- ther north in Pennsylvania, much longer, and so difficult of construction that the army, which had started in April, did not reach its rendezvous in the Alleghany Valley till late in November. WASHINGTON and his provincials led the advance, and his forces took possession of the ruins of Fort Duquesne, November 25, 1758, the French having evacuated and burned the fort the night before. WASHI- INGTON changed its name to Fort Pitt, and having repaired the fort, and left two hundred of his regiment to garrison it, marched the others back to Winchester, and himself proceeded to Williamsburg, Va., to take his seat in the General Assembly, of which he had been elected a mem- ber. As Indian hostilities had ceased, with the expulsion of the French from the Ohio, WASHINGTON resigned his Commission as Commander-in-Chief of the Virginia forces, determined to devote himself thenceforth to a civil career. Soon after resigning his Commission, he married,
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