Shipping Magnate, Railroad Tycoon

Beginnings.

Fittingly, the man who built America's largest Civil War-era shipping and railroad empire was raised on the edge of the Narrows below New York —on the threshold of the city that would, over the course of his lifetime, become the financial capital and commercial center of the nation. Cornelius Vanderbilt was born in 1794 and moved with his family the following year to Stapleton, New York, between the Upper and Lower Bays. He embarked on his career as a shipper at a young age, purchasing a small sailboat when he was sixteen and immediately going into business ferrying passengers and freight between Staten Island and Manhattan. Over the course of his career, Vanderbilt's vessels grew progressively larger and grander, and eventually they would travel transoceanic routes, but his business would remain essentially the same until he made a decisive shift to...