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William Henry Vanderbilt

William Henry VanderbiltBorn: 8-May-1821
Birthplace: New Brunswick, NJ
Died: 8-Dec-1885
Location of death: New York City
Cause of death: unspecified
Remains: Buried, Moravian Cemetery, New Dorp, NY

Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Business, Philanthropist

Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Wealthy son of Cornelius Vanderbilt

The American businessman and son of Cornelius Vanderbilt, William Henry Vanderbilt was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, on the 8th of May 1821. He was a clerk in a New York banking house from 1839 to 1842, when his father bought him a farm of 75 acres near New Dorp, Staten Island, New York. In 1860 he was appointed receiver of the Staten Island railway, of which he was elected president in 1862, and which he brought into connection with New York by means of a line of ferry-boats. He became vice-president of the Hudson River railway in 1865, vice-president of the New York Central & Hudson River railway in 1869, and president in June 1877, succeeding his father as president of the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern, the Canada Southern, and the Michigan Central railways. He died in New York on the 8th of December 1885. His fortune at the time of his death was estimated at $200 million. In 1880 he paid all the expenses ($100,000) incident to the removal of the obelisk ("Cleopatra's Needle") from Egypt to Central Park, New York; in the same year he gave $100,000 to found the Theological School of Vanderbilt University, which his father had endowed. In 1884 he gave $500,000 to found a school of medicine in connection with the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York. By his will he left $200,000 to Vanderbilt University, $100,000 to the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church, $100,000 to St. Luke's Hospital in New York, $100,000 to the Young Men's Christian Association of New York, $100,000 to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, $50,000 to the American Museum of Natural History, $100,000 to the Protestant Episcopal Mission Society of New York, and $250,000 in all to various other religious and charitable organizations and institutions.

Father: Cornelius Vanderbilt
Son: Cornelius (b. 1843, d. 1899)

    High School: Columbia College Grammar School

    Vanderbilt Family


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