Jay Gould

Gould was born in Roxbury, New York, to Mary More (1798–1841) and John Burr Gould (1792–1866). His maternal grandfather Alexander T. More was a businessman, and his great-grandfather John More was a Scottish immigrant who founded the town of Moresville, New York. Gould studied at the Hobart Academy in Hobart, New York,[5] paying his way by bookkeeping.[6] As a young boy, he decided that he wanted nothing to do with farming, his father's occupation, so his father dropped him off at a nearby school with fifty cents and a sack of clothes.[7]

Jay Gould (right) in 1855

Gould's school principal was credited with getting him a job as a bookkeeper for a blacksmith.[8] A year later, the blacksmith offered him half interest in the blacksmith shop, which he sold to his father during the early part of 1854. Gould devoted himself to private study, emphasizing surveying and mathematics. In 1854, he surveyed and created maps of the Ulster County, New York, area. In 1856, he published History of Delaware County, and Border Wars of New York, which he had spent several years writing.[9] While engaged in surveying he started a side activity financing operators making woodash for tannin used in tanning leather.

Keystone Marker for Gouldsboro, Pennsylvania, named after Gould

In 1856, Gould entered a partnership with Zadock Pratt[8] to create a tanning business in Pennsylvania in an area that was later named Gouldsboro. He eventually bought out Pratt, who retired. In 1856, Gould entered a partnership with Charles Mortimer Leupp, a son-in-law of Gideon Lee and one of the leading leather merchants in the United States. The partnership was successful, until the Panic of 1857. Leupp lost all his money in that financial crisis, but Gould took advantage of the depreciation in property value and bought up former partnership properties.[8]

Gould also started an ice harvesting industry on the large Gouldsboro lake. In the winter ice was harvested and stored in large ice houses at the side of the lake. He had a railroad line installed next to the lake and he supplied New York City with ice during the summer months.

The Gouldsboro Tannery became a disputed property after Leupp's death. Leupp's brother-in-law David W. Lee was also a partner in Leupp and Gould, and he took armed control of the tannery. He believed that Gould had cheated the Leupp and Lee families in the collapse of the business. Gould eventually took physical possession, but he was later forced to sell his shares in the company to Lee's brother.[10]

In 1859, Gould began speculative investing by buying stock in small railways. His father-in-law Daniel S. Miller introduced him to the railroad industry by suggesting that Gould help him save his investment in the Rutland and Washington Railroad in the Panic of 1857. Gould purchased stock for 10 cents on the dollar, which left him in control of the company.[11] He engaged in more speculation on railroad stocks in New York City throughout the Civil War, and he was appointed manager of the Rensselaer and Saratoga Railroad in 1863.

The Erie Railroad encountered financial troubles in the 1850s, despite receiving loans from financiers Cornelius Vanderbilt and Daniel Drew. It entered receivership in 1859 and was reorganized as the Erie Railway. Gould, Drew, and James Fisk engaged in stock manipulations known as the Erie War, and Drew, Fisk, and Vanderbilt lost control of the Erie in the summer of 1868, while Gould became its president.[12]

It was during the same period that Gould and Fisk became involved with Tammany Hall, the Democratic Party political machine that largely ran New York City at the time. They made its boss, notorious William M. "Boss" Tweed, a director of the Erie Railroad, and Tweed arranged favorable legislation. Tweed and Gould became the subjects of political cartoons by Thomas Nast in 1869. Gould was the chief bondsman in October 1871 when Tweed was held on $1 million bail. Tweed was eventually convicted of corruption and died in jail.[13]

In August 1869, Gould and his partner James Fisk conspired to begin to buy gold in an attempt to illegally corner the market. During this time, Gould used contacts with President Ulysses S. Grant's brother-in-law Abel Corbin to influence the president and his Secretary General Horace Porter.[14][15] These speculations culminated in the panic of Black Friday on September 24, 1869, when the greenback (cash) premium over face value fell on a gold double eagle from 62 percent to 35 percent. Gould made a small profit from this operation by hedging against his own attempted corner as it was about to collapse, but he lost it in subsequent lawsuits. The gold corner established Gould's reputation in the press as an all-powerful figure who could drive the market up and down at will.[16] Favored by Tweed Ring judges, the conspiratorial partners escaped prosecution, but the months of economic turmoil that rocked the nation following the failed corner proved both ruinous to farmers and bankrupting of some of Wall Street's most venerable financial institutions.

Gould purchased Lyndhurst on the east bank of the Hudson River as a country home in 1880

Gould's portrait hanging in his office at Lyndhurst

Gould was a member of West Presbyterian Church at 31 West 42nd Street. It later merged with Park Presbyterian to form West-Park Presbyterian.[22]

He married Helen Day Miller (1838–1889) in 1863 and they had six children.

Together with his son George, Gould was a founding member of American Yacht Club.[23][24] He owned the steam yacht Atalanta (1883).

Gould died of tuberculosis, then referred to as "consumption" on December 2, 1892, and was interred in the Woodlawn Cemetery, The Bronx, New York. His fortune was conservatively estimated for tax purposes at $72 million (equivalent to $2.35 billion in 2023[25]), which he willed in its entirety to his family.[5]

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.[26] It is located within the Main Street Historic District and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.[27] The family mausoleum was designed by Francis O'Hara.

The mausoleum of Jay Gould

Gould married Helen Day Miller (1838–1889) in 1863; they had:

• George Jay Gould I (1864–1923), married Edith M. Kingdon (1864–1921)[28]
  • Kingdon Gould Sr. (1887–1945), married Annunziata Camilla Maria Lucci (1890–1961)[29]
  • Jay Gould II (1888–1935), married Anne Douglass Graham[30]
  • Marjorie Gould (1891–1955), married Anthony Joseph Drexel II
  • Helen, Lady Decies (1893–1931), married John Graham Hope DeLaPoer Horsley Beresford (1866–1945)[31]
  • George Jay Gould II (1896–1963), married Laura Carter[32]
  • Edith Catherine Gould (1901–1937), married Carroll Livingston Wainwright I (1899–1967), then Sir Hector Murray MacNeal[33]
  • Gloria Gould (1906–1943), married Henry A. Bishop II, then Walter McFarlane Barker[34]
• Edwin Gould I (1866–1933), married Sarah Cantine Shrady[35][36][37]
  • Edwin Gould Jr. (1894–1917), died on Jekyll Island in 1917[38][39]
  • Frank Miller Gould (c. 1895–1945), married Florence Amelia Bacon, died on January 13, 1945[35][40]
• Helen Gould (1868–1938), married Finlay Johnson Shepard (1867–1942)[41] They adopted three children.[42]
• Howard Gould (1871–1959), married Viola Katherine Clemmons on October 12, 1898, then actress Grete Mosheim in 1937[43]
• Anna, Duchess de Talleyrand-Périgord (1875–1961), married Paul Ernest Boniface, Comte de Castellane (1867–1932), then Hélie de Talleyrand-Périgord, 5th Duke of Talleyrand, 5th Duc of Dino, 4th Duke von Sagan, and Prince of Sagan (1858–1937).[44] Children with Boniface:
  • Marie Louise Boniface de Castellane (1896–?), died during infancy or early childhood
  • Antoine Boniface, Marquis de Castellane (1896–1946), married Yvonne Patenôtre[45]
  • Georges Paul Ernest Boniface de Castellane (1897 or 1899–1944), married Florinda Fernández y Anchorena (1901–?)
  • Georges Gustave Boniface de Castellane (c. 1898 – 1946)
  • Jay Boniface de Castellane (1902–1956)
• Children with Talleyrand:
  • Howard de Talleyrand, duc de Sagan (1909–1929), he killed himself when told that he could not marry[46][47]
  • Helen Violette de Talleyrand-Périgord (1915–2003), married James Robert de Pourtales on March 29, 1937, then Gaston Palewski (1901–1984)
• Frank Jay Gould (1877–1956), married Helen Kelley; then Edith Kelly; then Florence La Caze (1895–1983)[48]

• Allegheny Transportation Company
• Gouldsboro, Pennsylvania
• Lyndhurst, his country estate on the Hudson River
• Paragould, Arkansas

• Ackerman, Kenneth D. (2011) [1988]. The Gold Ring: Jim Fisk, Gould, and the Black Friday, 1869. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. ISBN 978-0-396-09065-6.
• Brands, H. W. (2012). The Man Who Saved the Union: Ulysses S. Grant in War and Peace. New York: Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-385-53241-9.
• Renehan, Edward (2006). Dark Genius of Wall Street: The Misunderstood Life of Jay Gould, King of the Robber Barons. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 978-0465068869.
• Smith, Jean Edward (2001). Grant. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-84927-5.
• White, Ronald C. (2016). American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant. Random House Publishing Group. ISBN 978-1-5883-6992-5.

Newspaper articles

• Death of Jay Gould in the Brooklyn Eagle
• "George Gould is Married". The New York Times. September 15, 1886. p. 1.
• "Howard Gould marries". The New York Times. October 13, 1898. p. 1.
• "Howard Gould dies here at 88; last surviving son of Jay Gould, rail financier—yachtsman, auto racer". The New York Times. September 15, 1959. p. 39.

Books

• Gordon, John S. (1999). The Great Game: The Emergence of Wall Street as a World Power: 1653–2000. Scribner. ISBN 978-0684832876.
• Grodinsky, Julius (1981). Jay Gould, His Business Career, 1867–1892. Arno Press. p. 627. ISBN 978-1258168681.
• Hilferding, Rudolf (1981). Finance Capital: A Study of the Latest Phase of Capitalist Development. New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul. ISBN 978-0415436649.
• Josephson, Matthew (1962). The Robber Barons: The Great American Capitalists, 1861–1901. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.
• Klein, Maury (1997). The Life and Legend of Jay Gould. The Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-0801857713.
• Klein, Maury. "Jay Gould: A Revisionist Interpretation". Business and Economic History 2d ser., 15 (1986): 55–68. JSTOR 23702860.
• Kotz, David M. (2008). Neoliberalism and Financialization (PDF). Amherst: University of Massachusetts.
• Morris, Charles R. (2005). The Tycoons: How Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, and J. P. Morgan Invented the American Supereconomy. New York: Holt. ISBN 0-8050-7599-2.
• Renehan, Edward J. (2005). The Dark Genius of Wall Street: The Misunderstood Life of Jay Gould, King of the Robber Barons. New York: BasicBooks. ISBN 0-465-06885-5.
• Steinmetz, Greg. (2022). American Rascal: How Jay Gould Built Wall Street's Biggest Fortune. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1982107406
• White, Richard (2011). Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-06126-0.
• White, Trumbull (1892). The Wizard of Wall Street and His Wealth. Philadelphia: Mid-Continent Publishing Co.

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• Excerpts from Gould's New York Times obituary
• Obituary by the Iowa City Daily Citizen
• History of Delaware County and Border Wars of New York