Back to Blog
![]() In 1817, Vanderbilt went to work as a ferry captain for a wealthy businessman, Thomas Gibbons, who owned a commercial steamboat service that operated between New Jersey and New York. (A year after his first wife died in 1868, Vanderbilt married another female cousin, Frank Armstrong Crawford, who was more than four decades his junior.) Cornelius Vanderbilt: SteamshipsĬornelius Vanderbilt initially made his money in the steamships business before investing in railroads. In 1813, Vanderbilt married his cousin Sophia Johnson, and the couple eventually had 13 children. The vessel was used to chase down Confederate raiders. Civil War, Cornelius Vanderbilt donated his largest and fastest steamship, named the Vanderbilt and built for around $1 million, to the Union Navy. Eventually, he acquired a fleet of small boats and learned about ship design.ĭid you know? During the U.S. When Vanderbilt was a teen he transported cargo around the New York harbor in his own periauger. As a boy, the younger Vanderbilt worked with his father on the water and attended school briefly. His parents were farmers and his father also made money by ferrying produce and merchandise between Staten Island and Manhattan in his two-masted sailing vessel, known as a periauger. ![]() A descendant of Dutch settlers who came to America in the mid-1600s, Cornelius Vanderbilt was born into humble circumstances on May 27, 1794, on Staten Island, New York. ![]()
0 Comments
Read More
Leave a Reply. |