VANDERBILT VAN RENSSELAER. 



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Wanderings cuid Adoavturet In Persia (1807) ; Sketches 

 of Central Asiti (1868) ; Hit<ry of Boklutm (1873) ; 

 Mohammedanism in the AY/ eteeitlh Cent tin/ (1875); 

 Manners ami Oottwna in Oriental Gnmtriet (1S7(>); 

 Primitive VicHizatlim of the Tnrc<>- Tartar Peoples 

 (1879). He has publishuil a Dictionary of the Tiirco- 

 Tartur Lanr/wtr/i-s (1878) and an autobiography, 

 Life end Aaeenttrra (1883). His recent works are 

 The Origin of the Mufn/ars (1882) ; The Turkish Tribes 

 (1885); The Coming Skntfffflc fur India (1886). He 

 has also translated The SaieUxuviade, an epic poem of 

 the Uibeks (1885). 



VA N DEKBILT, CORNET ica(l 794-1877), capitalist. 

 was born near tlie site of Stauleton, Staton Island, 

 N. Y.. May 27, 1794. His condition was humble, and 

 education he neither possessed nor valued ; but his 

 financial talent has never been surpassed. At sixteen 

 he bought a boat to carry farm products to New York ; 

 lit twenty-three he had amassed $10,000. Then hejbe- 

 camo captain of a steamboat plying between New 

 York and New Brunswick, whore his wife aided him 

 by keeping a hotel. He remained in the service of 

 Thomas Gibbons till 1829 on a salary of $1000, and 

 raised the business to $40,000 a year ; then, refusing 

 his employer's offers, he embarked in the building of 

 steamboats to run on the Hudson, Ix>ng Island Sound, 

 and elsewhere ; hence his title of " Commodore." His 

 enterprise, daring, and persistence were rewarded by 

 uniform success. He was unmerciful to competitors, 

 but he was true to his word and had a rough sense of 

 honor. About 1848 he began to extend his maritime 

 operations. In 1851 he started a line of vessels to 

 San Francisco by way of the Isthmus, with a branch 

 to New Orleans in 1852. The next year he took his 

 family abroad in one of his ships, and in his absence 

 was dropped from the management of the California 

 routes. For this, as in other cases, his vengeance was 

 prompt and effective. He built a rival line, which com- 

 pelled the other to come to terms. He also established 

 a line to Havre, which was given up at the outbreak of 

 the civil war. His first and chief act of generosity was 

 in presenting to the government the Vanderbilt," 

 which had cost $800,000. At seventy his gains 

 amounted to forty millions, much of which was in- 

 vested in railroads. On these he now concentrated his 

 activities, acquiring control of the Harlem. His only 

 mistake (which he ascribed to bad advice of others) 

 lay in attempting to gain command of the Erie, of 

 which Fisk and Gould were ready to issue as many 

 shares as he chose to buy. He established the New 

 York Central system, and by means of its additions was 

 the originator of trunk lines in the United States. After 

 1873 he managed 2UOO miles of track. His statue, 

 with emblematic surroundings, was erected over the 

 Hudson River Railroad station in New York, 186'J. 

 Fast horses arid whist were his recreations, nioney- 

 niaking his business and delight ; but he helped those 

 whom he liked, and in his Liter years gave $700,000 to 

 Vanderbilt University at Nashville and presented a 

 church to Dr. C. F. Deems. He died at New York, 

 Jan. 4, 1X77, worth nearly a hundred millions. 

 See The Vnnderbiltx : the Story of tlieir Fortune, by 

 W. A. Croffut(l886). 



His son, WILLIAM HENRY VANDERBILT (1821- 

 3885), was born at New Brunswick. N. J., My 8, 

 1821. His father, who had little faith in his abilities, 

 left him to make his own way and gave him no nmt- 

 ance till satisfied that he could do it. This he proved 

 as a bank clerk, and then on a farm in Staten Island, 

 where also he was for a time receiver of a railroad. lie 

 was never permitted to take any part in the " Commo- 

 dore's" vast enterprises till 1864, when he was asso- 

 ciated in the management of the Harlem Railroad. 

 He soon won the paternal confidence ami showed him- 

 self entirely able to carry on what his lather had begun, 

 as well as to hold what lie had acquired. He became 

 Tice-president of the Hudson River Railroad in 1872, 

 and five years later was his father's chief heir and sole 

 VOL. IV. 2 v 



successor in the railway management. Better edu- 

 cated and a less striking and original personality, he 

 filled scarcely less space in the public eye by reason of 

 his roads and his millions. He inherited the taste for 

 horses and added one for collecting pictures. His only 

 notable^ benefaction was the gift of $500,000 to the 

 New York College of Physicians and Surgeons in 

 1884. He died suddenly at home, Dec. 8, 1885, hav- 

 ing doubled his father s huge accumulations. The 

 stocks passed into the control and chiefly into the pos- 

 session of his sons, Cornelius and William Kissam. 

 The former, who had the early discipline of self-help, is 

 the chief manager, and noted not only for business habits 

 and capacity but for blameless life and active interest 

 in religious and charitable work. He erected, 1887, in 

 New York a fine building for the benefit and conven- 

 ience of his railway employes. (F. M. B.) 



VAX DYCK, CORNELIUS VAN ALEN, missionary, 

 was born at Kinderhook, N. Y., Aug. 13, 1818. Ho 

 graduated at Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, 

 and was sent by the American Board of Foreign Mis- 

 sions to. Syria in 1840. He was ordained by the mem- 

 bers of the Syrian mission in 1846, and in 1848 was 

 made principal of the missionary seminary. In 1857, 

 on the death of Rev. Dr. Eli Smith, Dr. Van Dyck 

 took charge of the mission press and also of the transla- 

 tion of the Bible into Arabic. On his visit to New York 

 to superintend the printing of this work by the Amer- 

 ican Bible Society in 1866-67, Dr. Van Dyck taught 

 Hebrew in the Union Theological Seminary. After his 

 return to Beirut he resumed his duties in connection, 

 with the mission press and was also physician to St. 

 John's Hospital and professor of pathology in the 

 Syrian Protestant College until 1882. He has since 

 been physician to St. George's hospital. He has 

 edited in A rabic several mathematical and physical text- 

 books, and also translated the Wettminttef Shorter 

 Catechism, Scliaiiberg- Cotta Family, and treatises of 

 various kinds. 



VAN RENSSELAER, STEPHEN (1764-1839), the 

 "Patroon," _was born in New York, Nov. 1, 1764. 

 He was fifth in descent from Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, 

 a jewel merchant of Amsterdam, who under authority 

 of the Dutch West India Company acquired in 1630-7 

 an estate of more than 700,000 acres on the Hudson : 

 this was occupied by the family and by their numerous 

 tenants under a peculiar feudal tenure, and confirmed 

 by various orders during the Dutch possession, and by 

 a grant of Gov. Dongan in 1685. Stephen inherited 

 seignorial rights over some 3060 farms in Albany and 

 Rensselaer counties, including some 436,000 acres ; 

 these lands he did much to improve and settle, but 

 would never sell. His mother was a Livingston ; and 

 after graduating at Harvard in 1782 he married a 

 daughter of Gen. Philip Schuyler. Throughout life 

 he was active in the service of the State, and held 

 many offices, being in the Assembly 178',), in the New 

 York Senate 17'.K r >, lieutenant-governor 1795-1801, 

 president of the Constitutional Convention, regent of 

 the State University from 1819, and for a time its 

 chancellor, in Congress 1823-9. In the war of 1812 

 he commanded the State militia and directed the 

 attack on Queenstown. He took an early and active 

 interest in the Erie Canal, was one of the commis- 

 sioners from 1816. and for several years president of 

 the board. He directed Eaton's geological surveys, 

 1821-3, and bore the cost. He will be long remem- 

 bered as the founder (1824) of the Rensselaer Poly- 

 technic Institute at Troy. To have exercised equal 

 public spirit concerning the disputed and undetermined 

 rights of the tenants on his lingo property would 

 have saved the State much trouble and some blood- 

 shod. 



The "patroon'' system, under which extensive 

 portions of New York had been settled, in which his 

 Family had the largest interest, had been advantageous 

 at first, but its evils had been pointed out in 1732, and 

 it was ill adapted to the nineteenth century and to 



