Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made

by James Dabney McCabe

CORNELIUS VANDERBILT.

STATEN ISLAND lies in the beautiful bay of New York, seven miles distant from the great city. Its lofty heights shut in the snug anchorage of the inner bay, and protect it from the rude storms which howl along the coast. It lies full in sight of the city, and is one of the most beautiful and attractive of its suburbs. The commanding heights and embowered shores are covered with villas and cottages, and afford a pleasant and convenient summer resort for the people of New York. It now contains a large and flourishing population, and maintains a speedy and constant communication with the metropolis by means of steam ferry-boats, the total travel on which sometimes reaches as many as ten or twelve thousand passengers per day.

Seventy-six years ago, Staten Island was a mere country settlement, and its communications with the city were maintained by means of a few sail-boats, which made one trip each way per day.

One of these boats was owned and navigated by Cornelius Vanderbilt, a thriving farmer, who owned a small but well cultivated estate on Staten Island, near the present Quarantine Grounds. He was a man of exemplary character, great industry, and was generally regarded as one of the most prudent and reliable men on the island. Having a considerable amount of produce to sell in the city, he purchased a boat of his own for the purpose of transporting it thither. Frequently, residents of the island would secure passage in this boat to the city in the morning, and return with it in the evening. He realized a considerable sum of money in this way, and finally ran his boat regularly between the island and the city. This was the beginning of the New York and Staten Island Ferry. Mr. Vanderbilt, by close application to his farm and boat, soon acquired a property, which, though small, was sufficient to enable him to maintain his family independently. His wife was a woman of more than usual character, and aided him nobly in making his way in the world.

This admirable couple were blessed with nine children. The oldest of these, Cornelius, the subject of this sketch, was born at the old farm-house on Staten Island, on the 27th of May, 1794. He was a healthy, active boy, fond of all manner of out-door sports, and manifesting an unusual repugnance to the confinement and labors of the school-room. He has since declared that the only books he remembers using at school were the New Testament and the spelling-book. The result was, that he merely learned to read, write, and cipher, and that imperfectly. He was passionately fond of the water, and was never so well pleased as when his father allowed him to assist in sailing his boat. He was also a famous horseman from his earliest childhood, and even now recalls with evident pride the fact that when but six years old he rode a race-horse at full speed. When he set himself to accomplish any thing, he was not, like most boys, deterred by the difficulties of his undertaking, but persevered until success crowned his efforts. So early did he establish his reputation for overcoming obstacles, that his boyish friends learned to regard any task which he undertook as already virtually performed.

When he was only twelve years old his father contracted to remove the cargo from a ship which had gone ashore near Sandy Hook, and to convey it to New York. The lighters which were to carry the goods to the city could not reach the ship, and it was necessary to haul the cargo, transported in wagons, across the sands from the vessel to them. In spite of his tender age, little Cornelius was placed by his father in charge of the undertaking, which he accomplished promptly and successfully. He loaded his lighters, sent them up to New York, and then started for home with his wagons. Upon reaching South Amboy, where he was to cross over to Staten Island, he found himself, with his wagons, horses, and men, without any money to pay his ferriage across to the island. The ferriage would amount to six dollars, and how he was to raise this sum he was, for a time, at a loss to determine. Finally, he went to the keeper of the tavern, to whom he was a stranger, and asked for the loan of six dollars, offering to leave one of his horses as a pledge for the money, which he promised to return within two days. The tavern-keeper was so well pleased with the boy's energy, that he loaned him the money, and the party crossed over to Staten Island. The pawned horse was promptly redeemed.

Young Vanderbilt was always anxious to become a sailor, and, as he approached his seventeenth year, he determined to begin life as a boatman in the harbor of New York. On the 1st of May, 1810, he informed his mother of his determination, and asked her to lend him one hundred dollars to buy a boat.

The good lady had always opposed her son's wish to go to sea, and regarded this new scheme as equally hair-brained. As a means of discouraging him, she told him if he would plow, harrow, and plant with corn a certain ten-acre lot belonging to the farm, by the twenty-seventh of that month, on which day he would be seventeen years old, she would lend him the money. The field was the worst in the whole farm; it was rough, hard, and stony; but by the appointed time the work was done, and well done, and the boy claimed and received his money. He hurried off to a neighboring village, and bought his boat, in which he set out for home. He had not gone far, however, when the boat struck a sunken wreck, and filled so rapidly that the boy had barely time to get into shoal water before it sank.