Vanderbilt, Cornelius

Life Span
to
    Full name
    Cornelius Vanderbilt
    Place of Birth
    Burial Place
    Birth Date Certainty
    Exact
    Death Date Certainty
    Exact
    Gender
    Male
    Race
    White
    Sectional choice
    North
    Origins
    Free State
    No. of Siblings
    8
    No. of Spouses
    2
    No. of Children
    10
    Family
    Cornelius Vanderbilt (father), Phebe Hand Vanderbilt (mother), Sophia Johnson (first wife, 1813), Frank Armstrong Crawford (second wife, 1869)
    Occupation
    Businessman
    Relation to Slavery
    White non-slaveholder
    Church or Religious Denomination
    Other
    Other Religion
    Moravian

    Cornelius Vanderbilt, Gold Rush (American National Biography)

    Scholarship
    With the coming of the California gold rush in 1849, many gold seekers traveled west via Panama, crossing the isthmus on muleback. Vanderbilt had the idea of crossing Central America via Nicaragua, a route to California several hundred miles shorter than the Panama route. He invested in the American Atlantic and Pacific Ship Canal Company (later changed to Accessory Transit Company), which proposed to cross Nicaragua via the San Juan River, Lake Nicaragua, and a twelve-mile road (later to be a canal) to the Pacific. He built a fleet of steamers to run from New York and New Orleans, built docks on the coasts of Nicaragua and Lake Nicaragua, and improved the road to the Pacific. Soon the route was busy with traffic heading to California. The company prospered, and by 1853 Vanderbilt was worth an estimated $11 million.
    John F. Stover, "Vanderbilt, Cornelius," American National Biography Online, February 2000, http://www.anb.org/articles/10/10-01678.html.
    How to Cite This Page: "Vanderbilt, Cornelius," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/12907.