Jay Gould

Jay Gould, full name Jason Gould (1836-1892), American financier, born in Roxbury, New York. He left school at the age of 16 to work as a surveyor; later he was a leather merchant and a banker. In the late 1850s he began buying railroad bonds and soon controlled the Rensselaer and Saratoga Line. In 1859 he became a stockbroker in New York City and began his association with the American speculators James Fisk and Daniel Drew. Through stock manipulation, they gained control of the Erie Railroad from American financier Cornelius Vanderbilt, and in 1868 Gould became president of the line. Gould, Fisk, and Drew gained about $11 million from this venture. In 1869 Gould entered a scheme to corner the gold market, which resulted in a sudden drop in the price of gold and one of the worst panics in American financial history, on Black Friday. Soon afterward, litigation was begun against Gould for his $5-million sale of worthless Erie Railroad stock, and in 1872 he was forced to relinquish control of the line.

Gould subsequently invested legitimately in western railroads, and by 1890 he controlled more than 20,000 km (about 13,000 mi) of railroad, including the Missouri Pacific system. He also owned the New York City newspaper The World from 1879 to 1883 and the Western Union Telegraph Company.