Page 94 - Cousins - Celebrities, Saints & Sinners

7th Cousin,

7 Times Removed

Common Ancestor

Father: Henry A. Perley
Somerset, England
1540 - 1610

Mother: Elizabeth Pearl
England
1540 - Unknown

Born: Died:
27 May 1794 4 January 1877
Staten Island, New York Manhattan, New York

Cornelius Vanderbilt was an American business magnate who built
his wealth in railroads and shipping. After working with his father's
business, Vanderbilt worked his way into leadership positions in the
inland water trade and invested in the rapidly growing railroad
industry. Nicknamed "The Commodore", he is known for owning
the New York Central Railroad. His biographer T. J. Stiles says, "He
vastly improved and expanded the nation's transportation
infrastructure, contributing to a transformation of the very
geography of the United States. He embraced new technologies
and new forms of business organization and used them to compete.... He helped to create the corporate
economy that would define the United States into the 21st century."

As one of the richest Americans in history and wealthiest figures overall, Vanderbilt was the patriarch of the
wealthy and influential Vanderbilt family. He provided the initial gift to found Vanderbilt
University in Nashville, Tennessee. According to historian H. Roger Grant: "Contemporaries, too often hated or
feared Vanderbilt or at least considered him an unmannered brute. While Vanderbilt could be a rascal,
combative and cunning, he was much more a builder than a wrecker [...] being honorable, shrewd, and hard-
working.

Cornelius Vanderbilt was born to Cornelius van Derbilt and Phebe Hand. He began working on his father's ferry
in New York Harbor as a boy, quitting school at the age of 11. At the age of 16, Vanderbilt decided to start his
own ferry service using his father’s periauger (a shallow draft, two-masted sailing vessel), which he christened
the Swiftsure. The younger Vanderbilt received half the profit. He began his business by ferrying freight and
passengers on a ferry between Staten Island and Manhattan.

In addition to running his ferry, Vanderbilt bought his brother-in-law John De Forest's schooner Charlotte and
traded in food and merchandise in partnership with his father and others. But on November 24, 1817, a ferry
entrepreneur named Thomas Gibbons asked Vanderbilt to captain his steamboat between New Jersey and
New York. Although Vanderbilt kept his own businesses running, he became Gibbons's business manager.
When Vanderbilt entered his new position, Gibbons was fighting against a steamboat monopoly in New York
waters, which had been granted by the New York State Legislature to the politically influential patrician Robert
94