Jay Gould

Jay Gould (1836 to 1892) was an American railroad magnate and financial speculator who founded the Gould business dynasty. Born Jason Gould in Roxbury, New York, to a poor farming family, he worked as a surveyor, ran a tannery partnership in Pennsylvania and then began investing in railroads. With Daniel Drew and James Fisk he took part in the stock manipulations known as the Erie War, and after Drew, Fisk and Cornelius Vanderbilt lost control of the Erie in 1868 Gould became its president. In 1869 he and Fisk tried to corner the gold market, and in 1873 he took control of the Union Pacific after the Panic of 1873 had depressed its stock. He is generally counted among the robber barons of the Gilded Age, was one of the wealthiest men of the late nineteenth century and remains controversial.