CORNELIUS VANDERBILT AND VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY.
Cornelius Vanderbilt, born May 27, 1794, descended from a Dutch farmer, Jan Aertsen Van der Bilt, who settled in Brooklyn, N.Y., about 1650, began his career in assisting his father to convey his produce to market in a sail-boat. The boy did not care for education, but was active in pursuit of business. At sixteen he purchased for one hundred dollars a boat, in which he ferried passengers and goods between New York City and Staten Island, where his father lived. He saved carefully until he had paid for it. At eighteen he was the owner of two boats, and captain of a third.
At nineteen he married a cousin, Sophia Johnson, who by her saving and her energy helped him to accumulate his fortune. At twenty-three he was worth $9,000, and was the captain of a steamboat at a salary of $1,000 a year. The boat made trips between New York City and New Brunswick, N.J., where his wife managed a small hotel.
CORNELIUS VANDERBILT.
In 1829, when he was thirty-five, he began to build steamboats, and operated them on the Hudson River, on Long Island Sound, and on the route to Boston. When he was forty his property was estimated at $500,000. When the gold-seekers rushed to California, in 1848-1849, Mr. Vanderbilt established a line by way of Lake Nicaragua, and made large profits. He also established a line between New York and Havre.
During the Civil War Mr. Vanderbilt gave the Vanderbilt, his finest steamship, costing $800,000, to the government, and sent her to the James River to assist when the Merrimac attacked the national vessels at Hampton Roads. Congress voted him a gold medal for his timely gift.
In 1863 he began to invest in railroads, purchasing a large part of the stock of the New York and Harlem Railroad. His property was at this time estimated at $40,000,000. He soon gained controlling interest in other roads. His chief maxim was, "Do your business well, and don't tell anybody what you are going to do until you have done it."
In February, 1873, Bishop McTyeire of Nashville, Tenn., was visiting with the family of Mr. Vanderbilt in New York City. The first wife was dead, and Mr. Vanderbilt had married a second time. Both men had married cousins in the city of Mobile, who were very intimate in their girlhood, and this brought the bishop and Mr. Vanderbilt into friendly relations. One evening when they were conversing about the effects of the Civil War upon the Southern States, Commodore Vanderbilt, as he was usually called, expressed a desire to do something for the South, and asked the bishop what he would suggest.
The Methodist Church at the South had organized Central University at Nashville, but found it impossible to raise the funds needed to carry on the work. The bishop stated the great need for such an institution, and Mr. Vanderbilt at once gave $500,000. In his letter to the Board of Trust, Mr. Vanderbilt said, "If it shall through its influence contribute even in the smallest degree to strengthening the ties which should exist between all geographical sections of our common country, I shall feel that it has accomplished one of the objects that has led me to take an interest in it."
Later, in his last illness, he gave enough to make his gift a million. The name of the institution was changed to Vanderbilt University. Mr. Vanderbilt died in New York, Jan. 4, 1877, leaving the larger part of his millions to his son, William Henry Vanderbilt. He gave $50,000 to the Rev. Charles F. Deems to purchase the Church of the Strangers.
Founder's Day at Vanderbilt University is celebrated yearly on the late Commodore's birthday, May 27, the day being ushered in by the playing of music and the ringing of the University bell.
Bishop McTyeire, who, Mr. Vanderbilt insisted, should accept the presidency of the University, used to say, "My wife was a silent but golden link in the chain of Providence that led to Vanderbilt University."
When an attractive site of seventy-five acres of land was chosen for the buildings, an agent who was recommending an out-of-the-way place protested, and said, "Bishop, the boys will be looking out of the windows there."
"We want them to look out," said the practical bishop, "and to know what is going on outside."
The secretary of the faculty tells a characteristic incident of this noble man. "He once cordially thanked me for conducting through the University building a company of plain country people, among whom was a woman with a baby in her arms. 'Who knows what may come of that visit?' said he. 'It may bring that baby here as a student. He may yet be one of our illustrious men. Who knows? Who knows? Such people are not to be neglected. Great men come of them.'"
Vanderbilt University now has over seven hundred students, and is sending out many capable scholars into fields of usefulness.
Mr. William H. Vanderbilt, the son of Cornelius, gave over $450,000 to the University. His first gift of $100,000 was for the gymnasium, Science Hall, and Wesley Hall, the Home of the Biblical Department. Another $100,000 was for the engineering department. At his death, Dec. 8, 1885, he left the University by will $200,000.
Mr. Vanderbilt's estate was estimated at $200,000,000, double the amount left by his father. It is said that he left $10,000,000 to each of his eight children, the larger part of his fortune going to two of his sons, Cornelius and William K. Vanderbilt.
He gave for the removing of the obelisk from Egypt to Central Park, $103,000; to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York City, $500,000. His daughter Emily, wife of William D. Sloan, gave a Maternity Home in connection with the college, costing $250,000. Mr. Vanderbilt's four sons, Cornelius, William, Frederick, and George, have erected a building for clinical instruction as a memorial of their father.
Mr. Vanderbilt gave $100,000 each to the Home and Foreign Missions of the Primitive Episcopal Church, to the New York Missions of that church, to St. Luke's Hospital, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the United Brethren Church at New Dorp, Staten Island, and to the Young Men's Christian Association. He gave $50,000 each to the Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church, the New York Bible Society, the Home for Incurables, Seamen's Society, New York Home for Intemperate Men, and the American Museum of Natural History.
Cornelius Vanderbilt, the grandson of Commodore Vanderbilt, has given $10,000 for the library, and $20,000 for the Hall of Mechanical Engineering of Vanderbilt University. He has also given a building to Yale College in memory of his son, a large building at the corner of Madison Avenue and Forty-fifth Street to his railroad employees for reading, gymnasium hall, bathrooms, etc., $100,000 for the Protestant Cathedral, and much to other good works.
Another son of William H., George W. Vanderbilt, who is making at his home in Asheville, N.C., a collection as complete as possible of all trees and plants, established the Thirteenth Street Branch of The Free Circulating Library in New York City, in July, 1888, and has supported a normal training-school.
A daughter of William H., Mrs. Elliott F. Shepard, has given to the Young Women's Christian Association in New York the Margaret Louisa Home, 14 and 16 East Sixteenth Street, a handsome and well-appointed structure where working-women can find a temporary home and comfort. The limit of time for each guest is four weeks. The house contains fifty-eight single and twenty-one double rooms. It has proved a great blessing to those who are strangers in a great city, and need inexpensive and respectable surroundings.
It is stated in the press that Mrs. Frederick Vanderbilt uses a generous portion of her income in preparing worthy young women for some useful position in life,—as nurses, or in sewing or art, each individual having $500 expended for such training.