VANDERBILT 



VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY 



York, was competing so fiercely with the Hud- 

 son River lines that he soon acquired them. 

 and before 1850 had established regular serv- 

 ice on the Delaware River and from New York 

 to Boston. His fleet was then the largest of 

 its kind in the world, and the title of "Commo- 

 dore" was appro- 

 priately granted 

 him by the pub- 

 lic-. 



H ivinj; estab- 

 c luring the 

 next few years 

 an overland route 

 by way of Lake 

 Nicaragua to 

 California and a 

 highly successful 

 line from New CORNELIUS VAJsrr>ERBiL/r 

 York to Havre, The founder of the family 

 he began about fortune - 

 1861 to transfer his interests from steamboats 

 to railways. In 1869 he was elected president 

 of the New York Central Railroad. He was a 

 man of daring originality, and yet is said never 

 to have lost in any operation undertaken. He 

 left a fortune of about $100,000,000, which for 

 years made the Vanderbilt family the most 

 powerful financial influence in America. His 

 bequest of $1,000,000 founded Vanderbilt Uni- 

 versity, at Nashville, Tenn. 



William Henry Vanderbilt (1821-1885), son 

 of Cornelius Vanderbilt, was born at Brunswick, 

 N. J. After a course in the Columbia Giammar 

 School, New York, he entered the banking 

 business in that city, but was compelled by 

 failing health to retire to a Staten Island farm. 

 While there he became interested in the Staten 

 Island Railroad, then in grave financial diffi- 

 culties, and within two years cleared it from 

 debt and connected it with New York by a 

 ferry line. This display of executive ability 

 won him the presidency of the road, and his 

 father offered him the management of various 

 important lines. Upon the father's death in 

 1877 he became president of the New York 

 Central Railway, and so skilfully managed it 

 that the system ultimately controlled the 

 Michigan Central, the Canada Southern, the 

 Lake Shore & Michigan Southern and the West 

 Shore lines. In his day he was considered one 

 of the greatest authorities on transportation in 

 the world. Like his father, he was interested 

 in education and philanthropy, and gave large 

 sums to Vanderbilt University and other insti- 

 tutions of learning. 



Cornelius Vanderbilt (1843-1899), son of Wil- 

 liam Henry Vanderbilt, was born at New Dorp, 

 Staten Island. He was educated by private 

 tutors, and began business life as a bank 

 clerk in New York. After sen-ing for a time 

 in the brokerage house of Kissam Brothers, he 

 entered the employ of the New York & Har- 

 lem Railroad, becoming treasurer of that com- 

 pany in 1867. In 1877, when the death of the 

 "Commodore" made Cornelius Vanderbilt's 

 father president of the New York Central In 

 the young man became the first vice-president 

 of that road, a position that carried grave re- 

 sponsibilities. Subsequently he held director- 

 ships in over thirty different railroad companies. 

 He was a generous contributor to many institu- 

 tions, including Vanderbilt and Yale universi- 

 ties, and he gave to the Metropolitan Museum 

 one of its chief treasures Rosa Bpnheur's 

 Horse Fair. 



His eldest son, CORNELIUS (1873- ), is a 

 director in numerous insurance, railway and 

 banking enterprises, and his daughter GLADYS, 

 who married an Austrian count, served as a 

 nurse in Austrian hospitals during the War of 

 the Nations and was awarded the Order of the 

 Red Cross by Emperor Francis Joseph. 



William Kissam Vanderbilt (1849- ), son 

 of William Henry Vanderbilt, was born on 

 Staten Island. After receiving an excellent 

 education at Geneva, Switzerland, he began 

 business as an ordinary bookkeeper in the 

 treasurer's office of the Hudson River Railway, 

 and after learning thoroughly the details of 

 railroad enterprises was intrusted by his father 

 with the management of numerous responsible 

 offices connected with the New York Central 

 Railway. As a director in no fewer than four- 

 teen railroads and a large number of industries 

 connected with them, he became one of the 

 leaders in American transportation. With his 

 brothers, Frederick William and George Wash- 

 ington Vanderbilt, he founded the Vanderbilt 

 Clinic in New York City, and presented the 

 $250,000 Kissam Hall, in memory of his mother, 

 to Vanderbilt University, Nashville. C.H.H. 



VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY, a coeduca- 

 tional institution located at Nashville, Tenn., 

 named in honor of Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794- 

 1877), who contributed generously to its endow- 

 ment fund. Though the original donation of 

 $500,000 was made to a corporation, organized 

 in 1872 under the name of the Central Uni- 

 versity of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the 

 present institution, which began its sessions in 

 1875, is a nonsectarian university. The origi- 



