I have been told by a person familiarly acquainted with him that years after Greeley’s death he would sometimes sit in deep meditation, with the tears welling up in his eyes, especially when in a great financial strait, and sighingly say: “When Mr. Greeley died I lost the best friend in the world.” Be it said to his credit, however, in spite of all his shortcomings, he exhibited his honesty by paying every cent of the debt, with interest, to Mr. Greeley’s daughters. He also paid the greater part of all the other debts which he had contracted under similar circumstances, after making a settlement with Wm. H. and receiving a much larger amount than he had been left by the will of his father, who bequeathed him merely a decent competence for his rank and station in life, without any surplus for the policy shops and faro banks.
One of the qualities possessed by “Corneel” in a remarkable degree, and which enabled him to be so successful a borrower, was his extreme earnestness. He bent his whole energies to the work in hand, and his requests usually met with ready response. If he had put the same energy and intense enthusiasm into legitimate speculation, he would have been as successful as his father or Jay Gould. He must have been an intuitive judge of character, for he showed that he generally knew his man in advance of making application for sundry little loans. In that respect he was not unlike the famous huntsman who was a dead shot every time.
My first acquaintance with “Corneel” was through one of his special friends, the Hon. Schuyler Colfax, whom he brought to my office for the purpose of having himself introduced by Mr. Colfax. He informed me that he had just then returned from Hartford, Conn., where he had taken his friend, Mr. Colfax, for a week’s visit at his house. It can be readily imagined, therefore, that at this time Mr. Colfax had but little control over his own bank account and for a long time afterwards.
I invited both these gentlemen to dinner at the Club that afternoon. Although Mr. Colfax was an extraordinarily good talker, he was left far in the distance and almost silenced by “Corneel.” Most of what the latter said, however, had very little in it of a tangible character, and was almost entirely made up of unstinted praise of his friend Colfax. If ever there was a man talked up to the skies, or if the thing were possible, Colfax must have been literally in that elevated position during our dinner.
There was no let-up to the unqualified adulation, yet I must say that there was none of the uninterrupted stream of fulsome flattery fell to the ground. Schuyler took it all in as he did his viands, and as if it were legitimately his due, a proof positive that “Young Corneel” was not mistaken in his man; and a further demonstration of his natural sagacity in striking the man upon whom he could successfully exercise his peculiar charms of persuasion.
When he got tired talking about Mr. Colfax, the object of his next theme was Mr. Greeley, on whom he was profusely prolific.
I met Mr. Greeley frequently afterwards, and told him what a good friend he had in young Cornelius Vanderbilt. “Yes,” he said, with a knowing smile, “I think he is a good friend of mine. I have heard of his frequently saying nice things about me. It is a great pity, however,” he added significantly, “that he is so frequently short of funds. If he had more money he would be a very good fellow.”
It was generally in the way above referred that he would steal a march on Mr. Greeley and impose on his good nature. He would say nice things about him to some one who would quote him to Mr. Greeley, and thus pave the way for an additional loan. In a few days afterward “Corneel” would call on his tried and trusty friend, and never fail to obtain the needed relief, or a large portion of it.
“Corneel” had great tact in utilizing his various advantages for borrowing, and was imbued with a thorough devotion to his object, worthy of a better cause. The day following his first visit to my office, he called again and told me that his friend Colfax had left by the early train for Washington and had urged him to go along, but as he had some matters to attend to he had postponed his departure until the night train.
He said to me, “By-the-bye, you know Jay Cooke very well.”