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William Henry Vanderbilt

Male 1821 - 1885  (64 years)    Has 57 ancestors and more than 100 descendants in this family tree.

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  • Name William Henry Vanderbilt 
    Birth 1821 
    Gender Male 
    Prominent People USA Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Death Dec 1885 
    Siblings 12 Siblings 
    Person ID I322640  Geneagraphie
    Last Modified 19 Jan 2002 

    Father Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt,   b. 1794   d. 4 Jan 1877 (Age 83 years) 
    Mother Sophia Johnson,   b. 1795   d. 1868 (Age 73 years) 
    Family ID F128498  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family Maria Louise Kissam,   b. 1821   d. 1896 (Age 75 years) 
    Marriage 1841 
    Children 
    +1. Cornelius Vanderbilt, II,   b. 1843   d. Sep 1899 (Age 56 years)
    +2. Margaret Louisa Vanderbilt,   b. 1845   d. 1924 (Age 79 years)
     3. Allen Vanderbilt,   b. 1846   d. 1858 (Age 12 years)
    +4. William Kissam Vanderbilt,   b. 1849   d. 1920 (Age 71 years)
    +5. Emily Thorn Vanderbilt,   b. 1850   d. 1946 (Age 96 years)
    +6. Florence Adele Vanderbilt,   b. 1854   d. 1952 (Age 98 years)
     7. Frederick William Vanderbilt,   b. 1856   d. 1938 (Age 82 years)
    +8. Eliza Osgood Vanderbilt,   b. 1860   d. 1936 (Age 76 years)
    +9. George Washington Vanderbilt,   b. 1862   d. 1914 (Age 52 years)
    Family ID F128499  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 30 Oct 2018 

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  • Notes 
    • When William Henry inherited the bulk his father's estate he was already 56 and had been working in railroad management for 13 years. Initially not to his father's taste, who favored his youngest boy George Washington Vanderbilt, William spent much of his life as a farmer on Staten Island. His relationship with his tyrannic father was difficult from the start as the Commodore disdained his oldest son and treated him accordingly. This changed in 1864, after his youngest brother and designated heir to the Vanderbilt fortune died of tuberculosis. Suddenly Commodore Vanderbilt found in his dull son a shrewd businessman, who in one instance outwitted him when he bought manure for his farm, getting a scowload for what seemed to the Commodore a good price for a wagonload. Some people later jokingly remarked that William Henry Vanderbilt got to his inheritance from a scowload of manure. William Henry Vanderbilt proved his ability to manage a railroad first when the Commodore appointed him the receiver of tiny Staten Island Railroad. From bankruptcy, William Henry turned the small line around and within few years its stock rose to 175$ from virtually nothing. William Henry Vanderbilt also prospered as a farmer, having increased his original 80 acres farm fourfold. In 1864, William Henry Vanderbilt was made vice president of the New York & Harlem Railroad and within a few years he was a director of many railroads and his father's second lieutenant after Chauncey Mitchell Depew.

      With his inheritance, William Henry Vanderbilt suddenly was in control of America's greatest fortune and at the head of one of its largest corporations.

      A short family feud started when Cornelius Jeremiah and two sisters, Ethelinda Allen and Mary Alicia LaBau, contested the Commodore's will. But after a year of legal proceedings, William Henry settled with the parties and the case was dropped. His conciliating nature not only got William Henry Vanderbilt out of this delicate family crisis, it also helped him in the management of the New York Central, when in 1877 workers threatened to strike, following the labor unrest at the Pennsylvania and the Baltimore and Ohio railroads, which were due to wage cuts. As the New York Central cut wages, William Henry Vanderbilt softened the workers' pill by distributing a bonus of 100'000$ out of his pocket. This bonus was insignificant compared to the Vanderbilt fortune and it fell by far short of compensating the workers for the wage cut, but it won him the sympathy of his employees and the workers did not strike.

      The New York Central prospered under the guidance of William Henry Vanderbilt and Chauncey Depew and the Vanderbilt railroad system was extended to Chicago by achievement of control over the Lake Shore, the Michigan Southern and the Michigan Central railroads. A decidedly different character from the belligerent Commodore, William Henry Vanderbilt sought peace in most of his actions. When he came under attack from journalists, after his unfortunate reply "the public be damned", he entrusted John Pierpont Morgan with the private sale of 300'000 New York Central shares in London. Thus he reduced his 87% stake in the railroad to a mere majority. Still, in the tumults of railroad building of the 1880s, Vanderbilt would not find peace. In 1882 he acquired at heavy expenses the Nickel Plate, a railroad that was built to challenge his profitable Lake Shore, netting the promoters some $ 10 million profits.

      As soon as this was over another scheme emerged. Construction of the New York, West Shore & Buffalo, more commonly known as the West Shore, was started in 1881 and $ 50 million and two years later a line was completed, running along the west bank of the Hudson from New York to Albany and along the Mohawk West to Syracuse and Lake Erie.

      This new road directly threatened Vanderbilt's main property, the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad. Headed by former general Horace Porter, the West Shore had formidable backing, including George Pullman, John Jacob Astor III and Jay Gould. It's major threat however came from a secret understanding of these promoters with an even greater contender, the Pennsylvania Railroad. This time William Henry Vanderbilt was forced to fight and having recognized the Pennsylvania as being the real power behind the West Shore, he started the South Pennsylvania Railroad, invading the Pennsylvania's lucrative coal regions. In this, he allied himself to a group of Philadelphians (led by Arthur A. McLeod and including John Wanamaker and Thomas Dolan), promoters of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad. The Reading was already a major player in the Pennsylvania coal fields. The subsequent railroad war was exemplary in this period and involved millions of dollars spent in price wars and useless railroad construction. Under the leadership of the House of Morgan, whose head represented the Vanderbilts and whose main partner in Philadelphia sat on the Board of the Pennsylvania, the dispute was settled. The bankrupt West Shore was absorbed by the New York Central and the Pennsylvania Railroad likewise acquired the troubled South Pennsylvania. The Reading was shared between the Pennsylvania Group and Vanderbilt's Lake Shore. Incidentally the outcome of this railroad war brought the Vanderbilts into part control of the rich anthracite regions of Pennsylvania and thus further increased their great wealth. The losers were the heads of the competing schemes, the West Shore's Horace Porter and the Reading's McLeod, who disappeared from the ranks of railroad magnates.

      William Henry Vanderbilt and his sons acquired more railways, including the Rome, Watertown & Ogdensburg, the Boston & Albany and the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis (Big Four), almost trebling the mileage of the Vanderbilt system during the eight years he lived after the Commodore's death. He also brought his family enterprises under the wing of J.P.Morgan & Co, the institution which would soon emerge as the foremost private banking house and trust consolidator in the USA.

      But William Henry Vanderbilt also launched the Vanderbilt family into another domain it would dominate for years, the architecture of their private mansions. In 1879, work was started at 640 Fifth Avenue on a new mansion for William Henry and Maria Louisa Vanderbilt and two separate residences at 642 Fifth Avenue for two of their married daughters, Mrs William Douglas Sloane and Mrs Elliott Fitch Shepard. The three houses were finished in 1882, the first of a long list of princely mansions and country estates the Vanderbilt family would build during the thirty years that followed. In 1916 the mansion was reconstructed by Cornelius Vanderbilt III who had inherited it after his uncle George Washington Vanderbilt died without a son.



      While discussing railroad matters with Robert Garrett of the Baltimore & Ohio, William Henry Vanderbilt had a stroke and died within minutes in his Fifth Avenue mansion.

      At the time of his death he had grown his fortune to $ 200 million, of which a large part was conservatively invested in government bonds. In his will he was particularly far sighted, as he instituted the family fortune in favor of his children and grandchildren, effectively establishing the Vanderbilts as a regal dynasty in America. Unlike the Commodore, William Henry Vanderbilt split the family fortune among his children. Thereby he first set $ 40 million in a trust fund, from which each of his eight children would draw income in equal amounts, assuring each of them 500'000 $ a year - a royal income. The principal of this trust fund would descend to his grandchildren, yet in proportions his children would set by will. Another $ 40 million was shared between his eight children outright. Smaller bequest were made, including a 200'000$ allowance to his widow, who also received a lifetime interest in the Fifth Avenue mansion, 2'000'000$ to his eldest son Cornelius, 1'000'000$ to his favorite grandson (Cornelius' son William Henry who died 1892 of typhoid fever and never reached the age of 30 to get this inheritance) and about 1'000'000$ to various charities. The residual part, well over 100'000'000$ was left in equal shares to his two eldest sons Cornelius Vanderbilt II and William Kissam Vanderbilt, along with the responsibility for the family enterprises.



      Biltmore House



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