Cornelius Vanderbilt

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Lore & Background

Cornelius Vanderbilt was born in Staten Island, New York, on May 27, 1794, to Cornelius van Derbilt and Phebe Hand. He began working on his father's ferry in New York Harbor as a boy, quitting school at age 11. At age 16, he decided to start his own ferry service. According to one version of events, he borrowed $100 from his mother to purchase a periauger named the Swiftsure; however, according to the first account of his life published in 1853, the periauger belonged to his father and the younger Vanderbilt received half the profit. He began by ferrying freight and passengers between Staten Island and Manhattan. Other captains took to calling him 'The Commodore' in jest—a nickname that stuck. On December 19, 1813, at age 19, he married his first cousin Sophia Johnson; they had 13 children together. Vanderbilt remained a member of the Moravian Church to his death. On November 8, 1833, he was nearly killed in the Hightstown rail accident on the Camden and Amboy Railroad in New Jersey; also on the train was president John Quincy Adams.

Reader's Guide

Cornelius Vanderbilt's significance lies in his transformation of American transportation. After Thomas Gibbons died in 1826, Vanderbilt worked for Gibbons' son William until 1829, then worked entirely for himself. He started lines between New York and the surrounding region, taking over Gibbons' ferry to New Jersey and switching to western Long Island Sound. In 1831, he took over his brother Jacob's line to Peekskill, New York, and faced opposition by Daniel Drew, who forced Vanderbilt to buy him out; Vanderbilt became a secret partner with Drew for the next thirty years. In 1834, Vanderbilt competed on the Hudson River against the Hudson River Steamboat Association using the name 'The People's Line'; at the end of the year, the monopoly paid him a large amount to stop competing. By the end of the 1840s, he dominated the steamboat business on Long Island Sound and took over the presidency of the New York, Providence and Boston Railroad in 1847. When the California gold rush began in 1849, he switched to ocean-going steamships and started a steamship line to Nicaragua, founding the Accessory Transit Company. In 1852, a dispute with Joseph L. White led to a business battle; while Vanderbilt was on a grand tour of Europe in 1853, White conspired with Charles Morgan to deny him money. Vanderbilt retaliated by developing a rival steamship line to California, cutting prices until he forced them to pay him off. He then turned to transatlantic steamship lines, driving the Collins Line into extinction.

Did You Know?

• Cornelius Vanderbilt's great-great-great-grandfather, Jan Aertson, was a Dutch farmer from the village of De Bilt in Utrecht, Netherlands, who immigrated to New Amsterdam as an indentured servant in 1650.
• On November 8, 1833, Vanderbilt was nearly killed in the Hightstown rail accident on the Camden and Amboy Railroad in New Jersey; also on the train was president John Quincy Adams.
• Vanderbilt married his first cousin Sophia Johnson on December 19, 1813, at age 19, and they had 13 children together.
• Vanderbilt remained a member of the Moravian Church to his death, while many other Vanderbilt family members had joined the Episcopal Church.
• The landmark Supreme Court case Gibbons v. Ogden, which Vanderbilt helped bring about by working for Thomas Gibbons, ruled that states had no power to interfere with interstate commerce.