Cornelius Vanderbilt

Cornelius Vanderbilt

     A.K.A The Commodore

Who was he?

Cornelius Vanderbilt, a.k.a the Commodore, (born May 27,1794), was the man who had dedicated most of his life into making a transportation device, the first railroads.

How is He important?

Cornelius made a big difference to America though I will not get into all the details. After making railroads and the railroads being a success, he was rich. He realized that the other railroad companies were rising in popularity as well. He realized, no oil, no train transport. Luckily, for Vanderbilt the new oil company boss,John D. Rockefeller, was new. If he was able to trick him into giving him lots of oil for not much money, the battle of the railroads would end with him victorious. John realized that his oil was decreasing greatly from Vanderbilt and he complained to Vanderbilt. He told Vanderbilt that he would not give him oil if he didn’t stop taking so much. Vanderbilt, as the owner of most railroads, had the railroad path to a nearby city, the place where most of the oil went to. He knew that if any other train came carrying oil to the city he could stop them because it was his railroad making John mad, so Rockefeller created the first pipes to supply oil in America.

Occasional Problems

As a rich man people wanted Vanderbilt’s money, and so someone did something about it. He gave fake taxes to Vanderbilt and the money went to the schemers giving them lots of money.

Conclusion

Although Vanderbilt died,(January 4, 1877), he did a good job supplying America with what we would take for granted, such as oil pipe transport, although John D. Rockefeller invented it, he couldn’t of done it without Vanderbilt. And, if he hadn’t been alive, counterfeit money and bills might’ve still been around a little longer.

By Matthew Billings-Chiu

Websites: The Men Who Built America, and Wikipedia.