The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt (122 page)

11
New York Daily Advertiser
, June 4, 1824;
EP
, June 5, 1824; Sam S. Griscom, “Journal of a Tour thro N. Jersey, Penn and N. York with occasional remarks on the people, Literary characters Ladies Institutions &c. &c. &c.,” 1824, NYHS. For details on the
Legislator's
company, the Exchange Line, and transportation across New Jersey in general at this time, see Lane,
From Indian Trail
, 200–5.

12
Anne Royall,
Sketches
, 239: On the speed between New York and Philadelphia, see
NR
, December 10, 1825.

13
John Adams, Treasurer of New York Hospital, v. CV
, June 27, 1826, file 1826–20, Court of Common Pleas, NYCC. See also
Minutes of the Common Council of the City of New York, 1784–1831
, vol. 9 (New York: City of New York, 1917), for a reference to the
Legislator's
owners requesting permission to extend the Market-field Street dock (the one shared by the two boats) on June 21, 1824; CV filed a petition opposing the request on July 1. The dock was constructed in 1808 by none other than AO; see AO to Peter Dobbs, August 23, 1808, Aaron Ogden Papers, Misc. Files, NYPL.

14
EP
, June 3, 1825.

15
Andrew Burstein,
America's Jubilee
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001), 3, 8–14; A. Levasseur,
Lafayette in America in 1824 and 1825; or, Journal of Travels in the United States
, vol. 1 (New York: White, Gallagher & White, 1824), 8–10. For another fine study of this transition between generations, see Joyce Appleby
Inheriting the Revolution: The First Generation of Americans
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000).

16
Benedict, 270.

17
Burstein,
America's Jubilee
, 50. Cornelius Jeremiah was born in 1830, the first George Washington in 1832, the second (the first died in infancy) in 1839; Verley Archer,
Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, Sophia Johnson Vanderbilt, and Their Descendents
(Nashville: Vanderbilt University, 1972), iv.

18
See the correspondence for 1824 and 1825 in GP; for examples of the Union Line recordkeeping, see the GP-R; see also the toll books of the Trenton and New Brunswick Turnpike Company, folds. 9B and 10, box 3, NP. CVs testimony appears in
Den D. Trumbull et al. v. Gibbons
, April 10, 1849, 22 NJ L 117, 16.

19
On Gibbons's death, see the Account Book, 1826, GP;
EP
, May 17, 1826. On the completion of the canal and subsequent celebrations, see Burrows & Wallace, 429–32; Edward Countryman, “From Revolution to Statehood (1776–1825),” in Milton M. Klein, ed.,
Empire State: A History of New York
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001), 229–305. On the deaths of Adams and Jefferson and the Jubilee celebrations, see Burstein,
America's Jubilee
, 228–86.

20
Den D. Trumbull et al. v. Gibbons
, April 10, 1849, 22 NJ L 117, 16, 32–3. For evidence of CVs ongoing management of Union Line business, see GP-R and the Trenton and New Brunswick Turnpike Company Toll Books, folds. 9B and 10, box 3, NP. For insight into WG, see WG to
CV
, March 14, 1832, WG to George Jenkins, June 30, 1827, WG to James Parker, October 26, 1827, WG to George Jenkins, October 30, 1827, WG to Elias Van Arsdale, November 15, 1827, WG to Robert L. Stevens, October 26, 1828, WG to Robert Baylies, November 23, 1828, WG to E. A. Stevens, November 30, 1828, WG to William Halsted, December 2, 1828, WG to Phineas Withington, January 30, 1829, WG to E. Hall, February 6, 1829, WG to Robert L. Livingston, February 18, 1829, WG to Thomas J. J. Lefevre, Matthew C. Jenkins, and James T. Watson, February 23, 1829, GP On Americans' still-emerging views of corporations, see Pauline Maier, “The Revolutionary Origins of the American Corporation,”
WMQ
, 3rd ser., vol. 50, no. 1 (January 1993): 51–84; Naomi R. Lamoreaux, “Partnerships, Corporations, and the Limits on Contractual Freedom in U.S. History: An Essay in Economics, Law, and Culture,” in Kenneth Lipartito and David B. Scilia, eds.,
Constructing Corporate America: History, Politics, Culture
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 29–65.

21
EP
, August 27, 1825, June 2, 1826 (the description of the
Emerald
appears in a Union Line ad); Robert T. Thompson,
Colonel James Neilson: A Business Man of the Early Machine Age in New Jersey, 1784–1862
(New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1940), 269–72; entries for August 1828, May 3–6, 1829, Farm Diary, box 14, NP.

22
EP
, November 6, 1826;
SEP
, November 11, 1826; Entries 162 and 252, April 28, 1826, Abstracts Licenses Enrolled, July 1, 1825, to December 31, 1829, vol. 13041, New York Custom House Records, RG 41, NA.

23
NYT
, November 13, 1877;
NYW
, November 13, 1877. On CVs continuing obsession with horses, see WG to Samuel B. Parkman, March 16, 1827, GP.

24
NYW
, November 13, 14, 1877.

25
Alexis de Tocqueville (George Lawrence, trans.),
Democracy in America
(New York: HarperCollins, 1988, orig. pub. 1966), vol. 2, part 3, chap. 6, 580.

26
CV v. Patrick Rice
, November 26, 1827, file 1827-#1360, Court of Common Pleas,
Patrick Rice v. CV
, November 26, 1827, file 1827-#1671, Court of Common Pleas, NYCC.

27
NBF
, July 29, 1829 (which shows Jacob Vanderbilt as captain of the
Citizen); New-York and Richmond Free Press
, July 6, 1833; Entry 37, July 10, 1828, Enrollments, 1818–1821, vol. 2169, Perth Amboy Custom House Records, RG 41, NA subscriber list, New Brunswick Coal Association, Rariton Coal Mining Company, fold. 47, box 4, NP. For CVs dealings with William Gibbons, see citations from GP, next endnote.

28
Lane, 52;
EP
, July 8, 1828;
NBF
, July 29, 1829;
New-York and Richmond Free Press
, July 6, 1833; Entry 37, July 10, 1828, Enrollments, 1818–1821, vol. 2169, Perth Amboy Custom House Records, RG 41, NA WG to CV, March 14, 1832, WG to George Jenkins, June 30, 1827, WG to James Parker, October 26, 1827, WG to George Jenkins, October 30, 1827, WG to Elias Van Arsdale, November 15, 1827, WG to Robert L. Stevens, October 26, 1828, WG to Robert Baylies, November 23, 1828, WG to E. A. Stevens, November 30, 1828, WG to William Halsted, December 2, 1828, WG to Phineas Withington, January 30, 1829, GP. On the view of corporations as trade-restricting organizations, see Maier, “The Revolutionary Origins of the American Corporation,” and WG to E. Hall, February 6, 1829, WG to Robert L. Livingston, February 18, 1829, WG to Thomas J. J. Lefevre, Matthew C. Jenkins, and James T. Watson, February 23, 1829, GP. Lane, 49, repeats a tale popularized by Croffut, 34, that CV decided to leave the line to become an independent operator, to Gibbons's protest; when CV refused an offer to become his partner in the Union Line, Gibbons then sold the boats. For early renderings of this story, see
HW
, March 5, 1859, and
MM
, January 1865. The Gibbons Papers show there is no truth to it.

29
Lane, 49;
NBF
, July 29, 1829;
Trenton Emporium and True American
, July 11, 1829 (which appears to show that the
Emerald
, which had been sold and rebuilt, now operated on the Delaware). CV began to pay tolls on the Trenton and New Brunswick Turnpike for the Dispatch Line as early as May 1829; see the Trenton and New Brunswick Turnpike Company Toll Book, fold. 11, box 3, NP.

30
The
Gazette
story was quoted in the
SEP
, May 2, 1829. On the heavy-handed ways of captains and the shifty world of the waterfront, see a story about freelance porters in
EP
, September 23, 1824. CV did not move out of New Brunswick until some time in 1830, contrary to Lane's account; see the farm diary and James Neilson to George Able, January 28, 1830, fold. 17, box 3, NP. CV's ownership of bank stock is notable, a sign of his interest in investment opportunities and ease with banks and corporations; but it should be noted that New York was far in advance of the rest of the country in abandoning exclusive practices in both lending and stock ownership, with women and artisans trading shares and receiving loans (though bank chartering remained highly political). See Robert E. Wright, “Bank Ownership and Lending Patterns in New York and Pennsylvania, 1781–1831,”
BHR
73, no. 1 (spring 1999): 40–60; Naomi R. Lamoreaux, “Banks, Kinship, and Economic Development: The New England Case,”
JEH
46, no. 3 (September 1986): 647–67; Naomi R. Lamoreaux and Christopher Glaisek, “Vehicles of Privilege or Mobility? Banks in Providence, Rhode Island, During the Age of Jackson,”
BHR
65, no. 3 (autumn 1991): 502–27.

31
David R. Johnson identifies 1830 as a turning point in the response to professional criminals, in
Policing the Urban Underworld: The Impact of Crime on the Development of the American Police, 1800–1887
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1979), 12–15, 41–3. Allan Stanley Horlick,
Country Boys and Merchant Princes: The Social Control of Young Men in New York
(Cranbury, N.J.: Associated University Presses, 1975), 45, 26, 89.

32
Appleby,
Inheriting the Revolution
, 1–2; William Austin,
Peter Rugg, the Missing Man
(Worcester: Franklin P. Rice, 1882, orig. pub. 1824), 52–3.

33
Royall, 243–4; Patricia Cline Cohen,
The Murder of Helen Jewett: The Life and Death of a Prostitute in Nineteenth-Century New York
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), 62. On the expansion of New York, see Burrows & Wallace, 429–528; Countryman, in Milton Klein, 295–316; Eric Homberger,
The Historical Atlas of New York City: A Visual Celebration of Nearly 400 Years of New York City's History
(New York: Henry Holt, 1994), 68–72.

34
Daniel Walker Howe,
What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 525–42. As L. Ray Gunn notes, 39, “Wherever its influence was felt, the transportation revolution literally remade society;” see also 19, 23–56. See also Martin Bruegel,
Farm, Shop, Landing: The Rise of a Market Society in the Hudson Valley, 1780–1860
(Durham: Duke University Press, 2002), 159; Wood, 305–47;
EP
, May 17, 1826. For the “Yankee principle” quote, see
New York Illustrated Magazine of Literature and Art
, September 20, 1845. An excellent summary of the impact of the transportation revolution on local economies, and the subsequent rise of manufacturing for national markets in New England, is provided by Douglass C. North,
The Economic Growth of the United States, 1790–1860
(New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1966), 156–76. On the relative lack of immigration in the 1820s, see Tyler Anbinder,
Five Points: The 19th-Century New York City Neighborhood That Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections, and Became the World's Most Notorious Slum
(New York: Free Press, 2001), 42–3, who notes, “Immigration increased enormously after 1830.… The foreign-born population expanded from 9 percent of the city's total in 1830 to 36 percent in 1845.”