Jason "Jay" Gould was a leading American railroad developer and speculator. He
was long vilified as an archetypal robber baron, whose success at business
made him the ninth richest U.S. citizen in history, although some modern
historians working from primary sources have discounted his portrayal by the
contemporary press. Condé Nast Portfolio ranked Gould as the 8th worst American
CEO of all time. Early life and education
Jason Gould was born in Roxbury, New York to Mary More and John Burr Gould.
His maternal grandfather, Alexander T. More, was a businessman, and his
great-grandfather John More was a Scottish immigrant who founded the town
of Moresville, New York. Jay Gould studied at local schools and the Hobart
Academy in Hobart, Delaware County, New York.
Early career His principal was credited as getting
him a job working as a bookkeeper for a blacksmith. A year later the blacksmith
offered him half interest in the blacksmith shop, which he sold to his
father during the early part of 1854. Gould devoted himself to private study,
emphasizing surveying and mathematics. In 1854, Gould surveyed and created maps
of the Ulster County, New York area. In 1856 he published History of Delaware
County, and Border Wars of New York, which he had spent several years
writing. In 1856, Gould entered a partnership
with Zadock Pratt to create a tanning business in Pennsylvania in what would
become Gouldsboro. Eventually, he bought out Pratt, who retired. In 1856, Gould
entered another partnership with Charles Mortimer Leupp, a son-in-law of Gideon
Lee, and one of the leading leather merchants in the United States at the
time. Leupp and Gould was a successful partnership until the Panic of 1857.
Leupp lost all his money, while Gould took advantage of the opportunity of the
depreciation of property value and bought up former partnership properties
for himself. After the death of Charles Leupp, the Gouldsboro Tannery became a
disputed property. Leupp's brother-in-law, David W. Lee, who was
also a partner in Leupp and Gould, took armed control of the tannery. He
believed that Gould had cheated the Leupp and Lee families in the collapse
of the business. Eventually, Gould took physical possession, but was later
forced to sell his shares in the company to Lee's brother.
Railroad investing In 1859 Gould began speculative
investing by buying stock in small railways. Gould's father-in-law Daniel
S. Miller was credited with introducing the younger man to the railroad
industry, when he suggested that Gould help him save his investment in the
Rutland and Washington Railroad in the Panic of 1857. Gould purchased stock for
10 cents on the dollar, which left him in control of the company. Through the
Civil War era, he did more speculation on railroad stocks in New York City. In
1863 he was appointed manager of the Rensselaer and Saratoga Railroad.
The Erie Railroad encountered financial troubles in the 1850s, despite receiving
loans from financiers Cornelius Vanderbilt and Daniel Drew. The Erie
entered receivership in 1859 and was reorganized as the Erie Railway. Jay
Gould, Drew and James Fisk engaged in stock manipulations known as the Erie
War, with the result that in the summer of 1868 Drew, Fisk, and Vanderbilt lost
control of the Erie, while Gould became its president.
Tweed Ring It was during the same period that Gould
and Fisk became involved with Tammany Hall, the New York City political ring.
They made Boss Tweed a director of the Erie Railroad, and Tweed, in return,
arranged favorable legislation for them. Tweed and Gould became the subjects of
political cartoons by Thomas Nast in 1869. In October 1871, when Tweed was
held on $1 million bail, Gould was the chief bondsman.
Black Friday In August 1869, Gould and Fisk began to
buy gold in an attempt to corner the market, hoping that the increase in the
price of gold would increase the price of wheat such that western farmers would
sell, causing a great amount of shipping of bread stuffs eastward, increasing
freight business for the Erie railroad. During this time, Gould used contacts
with President Ulysses S. Grant's brother-in-law, Abel Corbin, to try to
influence the president and his Secretary General Horace Porter. These
speculations in gold culminated in the panic of Black Friday, on September 24,
1869, when the premium over face value on a gold Double Eagle fell from 62
percent to 35 percent. Gould made a small profit from this operation, but
lost it to subsequent lawsuits. The gold corner established Gould's reputation in
the press as an all-powerful figure who could drive the market up and down at
will. Lord Gordon-Gordon
In 1873 Gould attempted to take control of the Erie Railroad by recruiting
foreign investments from Lord Gordon-Gordon, whom he believed was a
cousin of the wealthy Campbells looking to buy land for immigrants. He bribed
Gordon-Gordon with $1 million in stock. But Gordon-Gordon was an impostor and
cashed the stock immediately. Gould sued Gordon-Gordon; the case went to trial in
March 1873. In court, Gordon-Gordon gave the names of the Europeans whom he
claimed to represent, and was granted bail while the references were checked.
He fled to Canada, where he convinced authorities that the charges against him
were false. After failing to convince or force
Canadian authorities to hand over Gordon-Gordon, Gould and his associates,
which included two future governors of Minnesota and three future members of
Congress attempted to kidnap him. The group snatched him successfully, but
they were stopped and arrested by the North-West Mounted Police before they
could return to the United States. The kidnappers were put in prison and
refused bail. This led to an international incident between the
United States and Canada. Upon learning that the kidnappers were not given bail,
Governor Horace Austin of Minnesota demanded their return; he put the local
militia on a state of full readiness. Thousands of Minnesotans volunteered for
a full military invasion of Canada. After negotiations, the Canadian
authorities released the kidnappers on bail. The incident resulted in Gould
losing any possibility of taking control of Erie Railroad.
Peak career After being forced out of the Erie
Railroad, in his 40s Gould started to build up a system of railroads in the
Midwest and West. Beginning in 1879, he gained control of four western
railroads, including the Union Pacific, which had completed part of the
Transcontinental Railroad, and the Missouri Pacific Railroad. By 1880, he
controlled 10,000 miles of railway, about one-ninth of the length of rail in
the United States at that time, and, by 1882, he had controlling interest in 15
percent of the country's tracks. Because the railroads were making enormous
profits and had control of rate setting, his wealth increased dramatically. When
Gould withdrew from management of the Union Pacific in 1883 amidst political
controversy over its debts to the federal government, he realized a large
profit for himself. He obtained a controlling interest in the Western
Union telegraph company, and, after 1881, in the elevated railways in New
York City. From 1868 to 1888, Gould was connected
with many of the largest railway financial operations in the United
States. During the Great Southwest Railroad Strike of 1886, he hired
strikebreakers. According to trade unionists, he said at the time, "I can
hire one-half of the working class to kill the other half."
Personal life Gould was a member of West Presbyterian
Church at 31 West 42nd Street. It later merged with Park Presbyterian to form
West-Park Presbyterian. = Marriage=
He married Helen Day Miller in 1863; the couple had six children:
George Jay Gould I, married Edith M. Kingdon
Edwin Gould I, married Sarah Cantine Shrady
Helen Gould, married Finlay Johnson Shepard
Howard Gould, married Viola Katherine Clemmons on October 12, 1898; and later
married actress Grete Mosheim in 1937 Anna Gould, married Paul Ernest
Boniface, Comte de Castellane and divorced; second, married Hélie de
Talleyrand-Périgord, 5th duc de Talleyrand, 5th duc de Dino, 4th Herzog
von Sagan, and Prince de Sagan Frank Jay Gould, married Helen Margaret
Kelly; then Edith Kelly; and then Florence La Caze
Death Gould died of tuberculosis on December
2, 1892, and was interred in the Woodlawn Cemetery, The Bronx, New York.
His fortune was conservatively estimated at $72 million for tax purposes, which
he willed in its entirety to his family. At the time of his death, Gould was a
benefactor in the reconstruction of the Reformed Church of Roxbury, New York,
now known as the Jay Gould Memorial Reformed Church. It is located within
the Main Street Historic District and listed on the National Register of
Historic Places in 1988. The family mausoleum was designed by Francis
O'Hara. Legacy
= Dramatic representations= Jay Gould is a key character in the 2014
historical murder mystery novel The New Colossus by Marshall Goldberg, published
by Diversion Books, in which reporter Nellie Bly is assigned by publisher
Joseph Pulitzer to investigate the 1887 death of poet Emma Lazarus.
He is a character in the final episode of The Adams Chronicles mini-series. The
program discusses his activities with respect to the Union Pacific Railroad
and Charles Francis Adams II. See also
Lyndhurst, his country estate on the Hudson River
Paragould Notes
Further reading Death of Jay Gould in the Brooklyn Eagle
Klein, Maury. The Life and Legend of Jay Gould. The Johns Hopkins University
Press. ISBN 978-0801857713. Grodinsky, Julius. Jay Gould, His
Business Career, 1867–1892. Arno Press. p. 627. ISBN 978-1258168681.
Josephson, Matthew. The Robber Barons: The Great American Capitalists,
1861–1901. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.
Hilferding, Rudolf. Finance Capital: A Study of the Latest Phase of Capitalist
Development. New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul. ISBN 978-0415436649.
Renehan, Edward J.. The Dark Genius of Wall Street: The Misunderstood Life of
Jay Gould, King of the Robber Barons. New York: BasicBooks. ISBN
0-465-06885-5. Morris, Charles R.. The Tycoons: How
Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, and J.P. Morgan Invented the
American Supereconomy. New York: Holt. ISBN 0-8050-7599-2.
Kotz, David M.. Neoliberalism and Financialization. Amherst: University of
Massachusetts. "George Gould marries". New York Times.
1886-09-15. "Howard Gould marries". New York Times.
1898-10-13. "Howard Gould dies here at 88; last
surviving son of Jay Gould, rail financier — yachtsman, auto racer". New
York Times. 1959-09-15. Gordon, John S.. The Great Game: The
Emergence of Wall Street as a World Power: 1653–2000. Scribner. ISBN
978-0684832876. Jay Gould: A Revisionist Interpretation;
accessed May 3, 2014. External links
Excerpts from Gould's New York Times obituary
Obituary by the Iowa City Daily Citizen Findagrave: Jay Gould
Photo from the Library of Congress's George Grantham Bain Collection
History of Delaware County and Border Wars of New York