Image via WikipediaJason "Jay" Gould (May 27, 1836 – December 2, 1892) was a leading American railroad developer and speculator. He has long been vilified as an archetypal robber baron,[1] whose successes made him the ninth richest American in history.[2] Condé Nast Portfolio ranked Gould as the 8th worst American CEO of all time.[3] Some modern historians working from primary sources have discounted various myths about him.[4][5]
Contents [hide]
1 Birth and early career
2 Marriage
3 The Tweed Ring
4 Black Friday
6 Late career
7 Death
8 See also
9 References
10 External links
Birth and early career
Jason Gould was born in Roxbury, New York, the son of John Burr Gould (1792–1866) and Mary More Gould (1798–1841). Gould's father was of British colonial ancestry, and his mother of Scottish ancestry. Gould's grandfather, Alexander T. More was a businessman, and his great-grandfather John More was a Scottish immigrant who founded the town of Moresville. Jay Gould studied at the Hobart Academy, where the principal was credited as getting him a job working for a blacksmith as a bookkeeper.[6] A year later the blacksmith offered him half interest in the blacksmith shop which he sold to his father during the early part of 1854. He continued to devote himself to private study, emphasizing surveying and mathematics. In 1854, Gould surveyed and created maps of the Ulster County, New York area. In 1856 he published History of Delaware County, and Border Wars of New York which he had spent several years writing.[7] In 1856, Gould entered a partnership with Zadock Pratt [6] to create a tanning business in Pennsylvania in what would become Gouldsboro. Eventually, he bought out Pratt who retired.
In 1856, Gould entered another partnership with Charles Mortimer Leupp, a son-in-law of Gideon Lee, and one of the leading leather merchants in America at the time. Leupp and Gould was a successful partnership until the Panic of 1857. Leupp lost all his money, while Gould took advantage of the opportunity presented by the depreciation of property value and bought up former partnership properties for himself.[6] The Gouldsboro Tannery became a disputed property after the death of Charles Leupp. Charles Leupp's brother-in-law, David W. Lee, who was also a partner in Leupp and Gould, took armed control of the tannery, based on his belief that Gould had cheated the Leupp and Lee families in the collapse of the business. Eventually, Gould took physical possession, but was later forced to sell his share of the company to Lee's brother.[8]
His father-in-law was credited with introducing Gould to the railroad industry, when he suggested that Gould help him save his investment in the Rutland and Washington Railroad.
Marriage
He married Helen Day Miller (1838–1889) in 1863 and had six children:
George Jay Gould I (1864–1923), married Edith M. Kingdon (1864–1921)[9]
Edwin Gould I (1866–1933), married Sarah Cantine Shrady[10]
Helen Gould (1868–1938), married Finlay Johnson Shepard (1867–1942)[11]
Howard Gould (1871–1959), married Viola Katherine Clemmons on October 12, 1898; and later married actress Grete Mosheim in 1937[12]
Anna Gould (1875–1961), married Paul Ernest Boniface, Comte de Castellane (1867–1932); and after a divorce married Hélie de Talleyrand-Périgord, 5th duc de Talleyrand, 5th duc de Dino, 4th Herzog von Sagan, and Prince de Sagan (1858–1937)[13]
Frank Jay Gould (1877–1956), married Helen Margaret Kelly; then Edith Kelly; and then Florence La Caze (1895–1983)[14]
The Tweed Ring
It was during the same period that Gould and James Fisk became involved with Tammany Hall. They made Boss Tweed a director of the Erie Railroad, and Tweed, in return, arranged favorable legislation for them. Tweed and Gould became the subjects of political cartoons by Thomas Nast in 1869. In October 1871, when Tweed was held on $1 million bail, Gould was the chief bondsman.
Black Friday
Jay Gould in 1855
Main article: Black Friday (1869)
In August 1869, Gould and Fisk began to buy gold in an attempt to corner the market, hoping that the increase in the price of gold would increase the price of wheat such that western farmers would sell, causing a great amount of shipping of bread stuffs eastward, increasing freight business for the Erie railroad. During this time, Gould used contacts with President Ulysses S. Grant's brother-in-law, Abel Corbin, to try to influence the president and his Secretary General Horace Porter. These speculations in gold culminated in the panic of Black Friday, on September 24, 1869, when the premium over face value on a gold Double Eagle fell from 62% to 35%. Gould made a nominal profit from this operation, but lost it in the subsequent lawsuits.
The gold corner established Gould's reputation in the press as an all-powerful figure who could drive the market up and down at will. For the rest of his life, newspaper writers would attribute to Gould almost any market development they could not explain otherwise.[citation needed]
Lord Gordon-Gordon
Lord Gordon-Gordon
In 1873 Gould attempted to take control of the Erie Railroad by getting foreign investments from Lord Gordon-Gordon, a cousin of the Campbells looking to buy land for immigrants, Gould bribed Gordon-Gordon with $1 million in stock. However, Gordon-Gordon turned out to be a fraud, cashing the stock immediately. Gould sued Gordon-Gordon, with Gordon-Gordon put on trial in March 1873. Gordon-Gordon gave the names of his European personages in court, whom he claimed to represent, and was granted bail while the references were checked. Gordon-Gordon took this opportunity to flee to Canada, where he convinced authorities that the allegations brought against him were false.[15][16]
After failing to convince or force Canadian authorities to hand over Gordon-Gordon, Gould and his associates, which included two future Governors of Minnesota and three future Members of Congress, attempted to kidnap him. The group was successful, but were stopped and arrested by the North-West Mounted Police before they could return to the United States. The kidnappers were put in prison and refused bail.[15][16] This led to an international incident between the United States and Canada. Upon learning that the kidnappers were not given bail, Governor Horace Austin of Minnesota demanded their return and put the local militia on a state of full readiness. Thousands of Minnesotans volunteered for a full military invasion of Canada. However, after negotiations, the Canadian authorities released the kidnappers on bail.[15][16] The incident resulted in Gould losing any possibility of taking control of Erie Railroad.
Late career
Jay Gould's Pullman Company rail car "Atalanta" now in Jefferson, Texas
After being forced out of the Erie Railroad, Gould started, in 1879, to build up a system of railroads in the Midwest by gaining control of four western railroads, including the Union Pacific and the Missouri Pacific Railroad. In 1880, he was in control of 10,000 miles (16,000 km) of railway, about one-ninth of the length of rail in the United States at that time, and, by 1882, he had controlling interest in 15% of the country's tracks. Gould withdrew from management of the Union Pacific in 1883 amidst political controversy over its debts to the federal government, realizing a large profit for himself.
Gould also obtained a controlling interest in the Western Union telegraph company, and, after 1881, in the elevated railways in New York City. Ultimately, he was connected with many of the largest railway financial operations in the United States from 1868-1888. During the Great Southwest Railroad Strike of 1886 he hired strikebreakers; according to labor unionists, he said at the time, "I can hire one-half of the working class to kill the other half."[17]
He was a member of West Presbyterian Church at 31 West 42nd Street, which later merged with Park Presbyterian to form form West-Park Presbyterian.[18]
Death
The mausoleum of Jay Gould
Gould died of tuberculosis on December 2, 1892, and was interred in the Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York. His fortune was conservatively estimated to be $72 million for tax purposes. Although a donor to charity from the 1870s onward, he willed all of his fortune to his family. At the time of his death, Gould was a benefactor in the reconstruction of the Reformed Church of Roxbury, now the Jay Gould Memorial Reformed Church.[19] It is located within the Main Street Historic District and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.[20] The family mausoleum was designed by Francis O'Hara (1830–1900) of Ireland. Gould's mausoleum contains no external identification.
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Descendents of Jay Gould
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Jay Gould timeline
See also
Lord Gordon-Gordon, who swindled $1 million from Gould
Lyndhurst, his country estate on the Hudson River
Death of Jay Gould in the Brooklyn Eagle
Paragould
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