Cornelius Vanderbilt

Cornelius Vanderbilt was born on Staten Island, New York, to a family of farmers and boatmen. He left school at eleven, and at sixteen used a hundred dollars borrowed from his mother to buy a small sailing boat and ferry passengers and goods to Manhattan. He worked on steamboats for the businessman Thomas Gibbons, helping him challenge a steamboat monopoly that the Supreme Court struck down in Gibbons v. Ogden in 1824. He then built his own steamship lines, cutting fares to beat rivals, and earned the nickname the Commodore. During the California Gold Rush he ran a shipping route across Nicaragua to the Pacific. In his late sixties he turned to railroads, buying lines including the New York Central and building Grand Central Depot in New York City. His railroads were run efficiently and he became perhaps the richest man in America. He gave a million dollars to found Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. He died in 1877, leaving most of his fortune to his son William.

Faith: Raised in a family converted to Moravian beliefs; he provided for building a Moravian church at New Dorp. Source: Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American Biography (via Wikisource)