Jay Gould - Birth and early career, Marriage, The Tweed Ring, Black Friday, Late career, Death and legacy, Timeline

Financier born in Roxbury, New York, USA. A surveyor by training, he wrote History of Delaware County, and Border Wars of New York (1856). He became a tanner and leather dealer in New York (1857–60), and began speculating in small railways on the stock market. Along with associates James Fisk and Daniel Drew, he fought and beat Cornelius Vanderbilt for control of the Erie Railroad (1867–8). Having used bribery to gain control, he and his partners did not hesitate to loot the railroad's treasury by stock manipulation. His attempt to corner the gold market caused the Black Friday panic (24 Sep 1869). Ejected from his Erie Railroad post in 1872, he gained control of several Western railroads and extracted a $10 million profit by threatening the Union Pacific. He also owned the New York World (1879–83) and most of New York City's elevated railroads, and controlled Western Union Telegraph Co. The epitome of the ‘robber baron’, he died ‘unlamented’ but worth over $100 million.

Birth and early career

Jason Gould, the son of John Burr Gould (1792–1866) and Mary Moore Gould (1798–1841), was born on a small dairy farm near Roxbury, New York. Contrary to the assumptions of Henry Ford and Henry Adams, who presumed Gould to be a Jew, Gould's father was of British colonial ancestry, and his mother of Scottish ancestry. Gould later went to work in the lumber and tanning business in western New York and then became involved with banking in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania.

Marriage

He married Helen Day Miller (1838-1889) in 1863 and had six children:

George Jay Gould I (1864–1923), who married Edith M. Kingdon (1864–1921) Edwin Gould I (1866–1933) Helen Gould (1868–1938), who married Finlay Johnson Shepard (1867–1942) Howard Gould (1871–1959), who married Viola Katherine Clemmons on October 12, 1898; and actress Grete Mosheim in 1937 Anna Gould (1875–1961), who married: Paul Ernest Boniface, ("Boni") Comte de Castellane (1867-1932); and after a divorce married his cousin: Helie de Talleyrand-Perigord (1858–1937), 5th duc de Talleyrand, 5th duc de Dino, 4th Herzog von Sagan, and Prince de Sagan Frank Jay Gould (1877–1956), who married Helen Kelley, then Edith Kelly, and then Florence La Caze (1895–1983)

The Tweed Ring

It was during the same period that Gould and James Fisk became involved with Tammany Hall; 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, John Gould was the chief bondsman.

Black Friday

In August 1869, Gould and Fiske began to buy gold in an attempt to corner the market, hoping that the increase in price of gold would increase the price of wheat such that western farmers would sell, causing a great amount of shipping of breadstuffs eastward, increasing freight business for the Erie railroad.

Late career

After being forced out of the Erie Railroad, Gould started, in 1879, to build up a system of railroads in the midwest by gaining control of four western railroads, including the Union Pacific and the Missouri Pacific Railroad.

Gould also obtained a controlling interest in the Western Union telegraph company, and, after 1881, in the elevated railways in New York City.

Death and legacy

Gould died of tuberculosis on December 2, 1892 and was interred in the Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York.

In his lifetime and for a century after, Gould had a firm reputation as the most unethical of the 19th century American businessmen known as robber barons.

The New York City press published many rumors about Gould that biographers passed on as fact. For example, they alleged that Gould's dealings in the tanning business drove his partner Charles Leupp to suicide. These biographers portrayed Gould as a parasite who extracted money from businesses and took no interest in improving them.

More recent biographers, including Maury Klein and Edward Renehan, have reexamined Gould's career with more attention to primary sources.

At the time of his death, Gould was a benefactor in the reconstruction of the Reformed Church of Roxbury, now the Jay Gould Memorial Reformed Church.

Timeline

1836 Birth of Jay Gould as Jason Gould 1841 Death of Mary Moore Gould, mother 1850 US Census with Jay Gould in Roxbury, New York 1856 Publication of History of Delaware County 1863 Marriage to Helen Day Miller (1838-1889) 1864 Birth of George Jay Gould I, his son 1866 Death of John Burr Gould, his father 1866 Birth of Edwin Gould, his son 1868 Birth of Helen Gould, his daughter 1869 Black Friday 1870 US Census in first Manhattan home 1870 US Census in second Manhattan home 1871 Birth of Howard Gould, his son 1875 Birth of Anna Gould, his daughter 1877 Birth of Frank Gould, his son 1880 Purchase of Lyndehurst from the widow of George Merritt, shortening name to Lyndhurst 1880 US Census with Jay Gould in Greenburgh, New York 1889 Death of Helen Day Miller, his wife 1892 Death of Jay Gould

Further reading

The Dark Genius of Wall Street: The Misunderstood Life of Jay Gould, King of the Robber Barons by Edward J. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, and J.P.