ific to San Francisco.
In a short time the old-established lines, both on the Atlantic
and the Pacific, were compelled to sell out to him. Then he
entered the transatlantic trade, with steamers to Europe.

With that vision which is a gift and cannot be accounted for, he
decided that the transportation work of the future was on land
and in railroads. He abandoned the sea, and his first enterprise
was the purchase of the New York and Harlem Railroad, which was
only one hundred and twenty-eight miles long. The road was bankrupt
and its road-bed and equipment going from bad to worse. The
commodore reconstructed the line, re-equipped it, and by making
it serviceable to its territory increased its traffic and turned
its business from deficiency into profit. This was in 1864.
The commodore became president, and his son, William H. Vanderbilt,
vice-president. He saw that the extension of the Harlem was not
advisable, and so secured the Hudson River Railroad, running from
New York to Albany, and became its president in 1865. It was
a few months after this when he and his son invited me to become
a member of their staff.

The station of the Harlem Railroad in the city of New York was
at that time at Fourth Avenue and Twenty-sixth Street, and that of
the Hudson River Railroad at Chambers Street, near the North River.

In a few years William H. Vanderbilt purchased the ground for the
Harlem Railroad Company, where is now located the Grand Central
Terminal, and by the acquisition by the New York Central and
Hudson River Railroad of the Harlem Railroad the trains of the
New York Central were brought around into the Grand Central Station.

In 1867, two years after Mr. Vanderbilt had acquired the
Hudson River Railroad, he secured the control of the New York
Central, which ran from Albany to Buffalo. This control was
continued through the Lake Shore on one side of the lakes and
the Michigan Central on the other to Chicago. Subsequently the
Vanderbilt System was extended to Cincinnati and St. Louis. It
was thus in immediate connection with the West and Northwest
centering in Chicago, and the Southwest at Cincinnati and St. Louis.
By close connection and affiliation with the Chicago and Northwestern
Railway Company, the Vanderbilt system was extended beyond
to Mississippi. I became director in the New York Central in
1874 and in the Chicago and Northwestern in 1877.

It has been my good fortune to meet with more or less