Among these Jay Gould is conspicuous, and of all the self-made men of Wall Street he had probably the most difficulty in making the first thousand dollars of the amazing pile which he now controls.
Jay Gould was born at Stratton Falls, Delaware county, New York, about the year 1836. He was the son of John B. Gould, a farmer, who kept a grocery store. At the age of sixteen young Gould became a clerk in a variety store belonging to Squire Burnham, about two miles from the Falls. Here, in his leisure hours, he assiduously improved the little learning he had received at the village school, by applying himself to the study of book-keeping in the evenings.
It was when he was at this store, according to the most reliable accounts, that he manifested his natural aptitude for making sharp and profitable bargains. His employer, the Squire, had his eye on a piece of land in Albany, which he expected to obtain cheap and so make a profit. He whispered his intention to some friend in the store and his young assistant overheard him. When he went to put his design of purchasing the land in execution he found that young Mr. Gould had been there before him, and had secured the title.
About this time there was a firm which had undertaken to survey the county and make office maps of it, and young Gould was employed to assist them. Having mastered the elementary principles of geometry, and being naturally quick and correct at figures, he soon became a fair expert in common land surveying, and made himself exceedingly useful to his employers. But the idea of not only being his own boss but an employer of other people’s brains and muscles was one of his ruling propensities, and he used every effort to attain this object. In a short time he bought out the firm, wrote a history of the county to accompany the maps and peddled his book among the residents.
This natural inclination to buy out every concern with which he has been connected has been the ruling passion of his life, and still tenaciously adheres to him. Prior to his negotiations with the firm of surveyors, he had invented a mouse trap in his intervals of leisure in the store, and with the proceeds of this and the bargain in the land, out of which he had outwitted his employer, he was enabled to make himself master of the situation with the surveyors. Shortly after this Gould became interested in a Pennsylvania tannery with Zadoc Pratt, who was the capitalist. Through the advice of Israel Corse, the Commission Merchant of the firm, Col. Pratt proposed to dissolve the partnership. Gould induced Charles M. Leupp & Co. to purchase Pratt’s interest for $150,000. The business did not meet the expectations of Leupp, who in a fit of despondency committed suicide. After his death Gould failed to retain possession of the property, which was sold to H. D. H. Snyder, thus terminating Mr. Gould’s career as a Pennsylvania tanner.
On his visits to New York Mr. Gould was attracted by the greater advantages which the Empire City afforded for extending his business, and came here to reside. He had ingratiated himself in the favorable esteem of one of the grocery merchants with whom he had done business. The merchant took him to his house to board and Mr. Gould fell in love with his handsome daughter. It was a mutual affair of the heart, like that of his son George and Miss Edith Kingdon, and a speedy marriage was the result. The results of the happy union seem to have been all that could be desired, and the domestic felicity of Mr. and Mrs. Gould, so far as the public have been able to ascertain, has never suffered the slightest jar or interruption.
The father-in-law owned shares in a railroad which was in a bad financial condition. He employed his new son-in-law to see what he could do to extricate him from a position in which he was likely to become embarrassed, and he wanted to sell his shares. Mr. Gould examined the road, (with the locality of which he had been well acquainted in his boyhood,) saw the favorable possibilities of its future, under good management, and instead of selling his father-in-law’s shares to a stranger, he took them at their market value himself, purchased more, finally obtained control of the entire property, and sold it to a rival company at a large profit.
This, I believe, was Mr. Gould’s first transaction in railroad matters, and from that day to this his great speculative forte has been buying and selling railroads. It was in that kind of business, and not in the stock market, as is popularly supposed, that he made the great bulk of his enormous fortune.
On his entrance to Wall Street he began business alone. Afterwards he formed a partnership with Henry N. Smith and — Martin, the firm taking the name of Smith, Gould & Martin. Martin is now in a lunatic asylum, and Henry N. Smith, who was the chief cause of the failure of Wm. Heath & Co. for a million dollars, is now a poor pensioner on the bounty of his wife. But Mr. Gould still towers aloft, in the full enjoyment and the continued progress of his speculative prosperity, without being dismayed by any competitor, however powerful, and overcoming all obstacles, no matter how gigantic.
As I have noticed pretty fully some of Mr. Gould’s greatest speculative transactions, mostly behind the scenes in the chapter on Black Friday and also in the account of the “Commodore’s Corners,” it will be unnecessary to repeat them here.