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Now possessed of a fortune of $25 million, Gould turned his attention to railroads in the West. He began buying large blocks of Union Pacific Railroad stock and acquired control of that railway by 1874.
For tax purposes, his fortune was conservatively estimated at $72 million (equivalent to $2.44 billion in 2024 [31]), which he willed in its entirety to his family. [7] 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. [32]
- Early Life
- Wall Street
- The Erie War
- The Gold Corner
- Gould and The Railroads
- More Questionable Associations
- Marriage and Home Life
- Death
- Legacy
- Sources
Jayson “Jay” Gould was born into a farming family in Roxbury, New York, on May 27, 1836. He attended a local school and learned basic subjects. He was self-taught in surveying and in his late teens he was employed making maps of counties in New York State. He also worked for a time in a blacksmith shop before becoming involved in a leather tanning ...
Gould moved to New York City in the 1850sand began learning the ways of Wall Street. The stock market was largely unregulated at the time, and Gould became adept at manipulating stocks. Gould was ruthless at using techniques such as cornering a stock, by which he could drive prices up and ruin speculators who were “short” on the stock, betting the ...
In 1867 Gould obtained a position on the board of the Erie Railroad and began working with Daniel Drew, who had been manipulating stocks on Wall Street for decades. Drew controlled the railroad, along with a younger associate, the flamboyant Jim Fisk. Gould and Fisk were nearly opposite in character, but they became friends and partners. Fisk was p...
In the late 1860s, Gould noticed some quirks in the way the gold market fluctuated, and he devised a scheme to corner gold. The intricate scheme would allow Gould essentially to control the gold supply in America, which would mean he could influence the entire national economy. Gould’s plot could only work if the federal government chose not to sel...
Gould and Fisk ran the Erie Railroad until 1872, when Fisk, whose private life had become the subject of countless newspaper headlines, was murdered in a Manhattan hotel. As Fisk lay dying, Gould rushed to his side, as did another friend, William M. “Boss” Tweed, the leader of Tammany Hall, New York’s infamous political machine. Following the death...
In the 1880s, Gould became involved in transportation in New York City, operating an elevated railroad in Manhattan. He also bought the American Union Telegraph company, which he merged with Western Union. By the late 1880s, Gould dominated much of the transportation and communication infrastructure of the United States. In one shady episode, Gould...
Gould was married in 1863, and he and his wife had six children. His personal life was relatively quiet. As he prospered, he lived in a mansion on New York City’s Fifth Avenue but seemed uninterested in flaunting his wealth. His great hobby was raising orchids in a greenhouse attached to his mansion.
When Gould died of tuberculosis, on December 2, 1892, his death was front-page news. The newspapers ran lengthy accounts of his career and noted that his wealth was probably close to $100 million. The lengthy front-page obituary in Joseph Pulitzer's New York Evening World indicated the essential conflict of Gould's life. The newspaper referred to "...
Gould has generally been depicted as a dark force in American life, a stock manipulator whose methods would not be allowed in today’s world of securities regulation. A perfect villain in his time, he was portrayed in political cartoons drawn by artists such as Thomas Nastas running with bags of money in his hands. History’s verdict on Gould has bee...
Geisst, Charles R. Monopolies in America: Empire Builders and Their Enemies, from Jay Gould to Bill Gates.Oxford University Press, 2000.“Jay Gould: Financier in the Age of Robber Barons.” Jay Gould: Financier in the Age of Robber Barons, www.u-s-history.com/pages/h866.html.Hoyt, Edwin P. The Goulds: A Social History. Weybright and Talley, 1969.Klein, Maury. The Life and Legend of Jay Gould.Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986.Feb 1, 2017 · His name was Jay Gould, and over his career, he made and lost several fortunes. By the time of his death in 1892, he was believed to be worth over $100 million. Gould was born in Roxbury in 1836 to a farming family.
American Rascal: How Jay Gould Built Wall Street’s Biggest Fortune. The gripping biography of Jay Gould, the greatest 19th-century robber barons, whose brilliance, greed, and bare-knuckled tactics made him richer than Rockefeller and led Wall Street to institute its first financial reforms.
May 21, 2018 · Jay Gould earned his fortune by means of financial manipulation, using investments in western U.S. railroads to gain a virtual monopoly on rail traffic to the southwestern quarter of the United States, giving him almost exclusive control over the rails in this region.
American financier and railroad builder Jay Gould made a fortune by controlling the price of the stocks he bought as well as the stock market itself. He later became one of the shrewdest businessmen in American industry.
