James Fisk, Jr., was born at Bennington, Vermont, on the 1st of April,
1834. His father was a pedlar, and the early life of the boy was passed
in hard work. What little education he received was obtained at the
public schools. At the age of seventeen he obtained his first
employment, being engaged by Van Amburgh to clean out the cages of the
animals in his menagerie and to assist in the erection of the tents. He
made himself so useful to his employer that he was soon promoted to the
position of ticket receiver. He remained with Van Amburgh for eight
years, travelling with him through the United States, Canada, and Europe,
and, at the age of twenty-five, left him to begin life for himself in the
calling of his father. He went back to Vermont, and began peddling such
small articles as steel pens and lead pencils through the towns of the
State. He succeeded in acquiring and saving a small sum of money, and
was able to borrow a little more. He then purchased a horse and wagon,
and began a series of more extended operations as a pedlar of dry goods.
He visited all the principal towns and villages of Vermont, and met with
a ready sale for his goods. His energy and business tact were eminently
successful, and his business soon grew to such an extent that his
one-horse wagon was too small for it. He accordingly sold this vehicle,
and purchased a handsome "four in hand," with which he travelled through
Massachusetts and Connecticut, as well as Vermont. He was very popular
with his customers, and established a reputation for fair dealing,
selling good articles at a moderate profit.
His energy and success attracted the attention of the Boston wholesale
house from which he bought his goods, and they thinking that he would
prove a useful acquisition to them, offered him an interest in their
business. Their offer was accepted; and, in 1860, he became a partner in
the house of Jordan, Marsh & Co., of Boston. He was sent South by the
firm, and though he succeeded in conducting for them several large and
profitable transactions during the early part of the war, and though they
remained his friends to the close of his life, the connection was not
altogether satisfactory to them, and, in 1862, they purchased his
interest in the business for the sum of $64,000.
About this time, some capitalists in Boston were desirous of purchasing
the Stonington line of steamboats, then owned by Daniel Drew. Fisk
became aware of their desire, and, coming to New York, in 1863, obtained
an introduction to Daniel Drew, and so won the favor and confidence of
that gentleman that he was employed by him to manage the negotiation for
the sale of the steamers, which he did to Mr. Drew's entire satisfaction.
From that time, Drew became his friend, and soon gained him a position in
Wall street.
Upon entering the street, Fisk began a series of speculations on his own
account, and, in the short space of two years, he lost all his money. It
is said that he swore a mighty oath that as Wall street had ruined him,
Wall street should pay for it. Daniel Drew now came to his aid, and, in
1865, helped him to form the firm of Fisk, Belden & Co., stock-brokers,
and assisted the new house by employing them as his brokers in many of
his heaviest transactions.
[Picture: JAMES FISK, JR.]
In 1867 occurred the great struggle between Drew and Vanderbilt for the
possession of the Erie Railway. James Fisk and Jay Gould now made their
appearance as Directors in the Erie Railway. The following is the New
York _Tribune's_ account of this affair:
"When the crisis came, on the eve of the election for Directors, in
October, 1867, there were three contestants in the field. Fisk was
serving under the Drew party, who wanted to be retained in office.
Vanderbilt, master of Harlem, Hudson River, and Central, seemed to be on
the point of securing Erie also. Eldridge was the leader of the Boston,
Hartford, and Erie party, which wanted to get into the Erie Directory for
the purpose of making that Company guarantee the bonds of their own
worthless road. Eldridge was assisted by Gould. As a result of the
compromise by which the three opposing interests coalesced, Fisk and
Gould were both chosen Directors of Erie, and from the month of October,
1867, dates the memorable association of these two choice spirits since
so famous in the money markets of the world. They were not the
counterparts, but the complements of each other. Fisk was bold,
unscrupulous, dashing, enterprising, ready in execution, powerful in his
influence over the lower and more sensual order of men. Gould was
artful, reticent, long-headed, clear of brain, fertile of invention,
tenacious of purpose, and no more burdened with unnecessary scruples than
his more noisy and flashy companion. They were not long in joining
fortunes. At the time of the famous Erie corner, the next March, they
were ostensibly working on opposite sides, Gould acting for Vanderbilt,
and Fisk being the man to whom Drew intrusted 50,000 shares of new stock,
secretly issued, to be used when Vanderbilt's brokers began to buy. The
mysteries of that transaction are fully known only to a few of the
principal actors. An injuction of Judge Barnard's had forbidden Drew or
anybody connected with the road to manufacture any more stock by the
issue of convertible bonds. But Drew was 'short' of Erie; the Vanderbilt
pool threatened ruin; and stock must be had. The new certificates had
already been made out in the name of James Fisk, jr., and were in the
hands of the Secretary who was enjoined from issuing them. Mr. Fisk saw
a way out of the difficulty. The Secretary gave the certificate books to
an employe of the road, with directions to carry them carefully to the
transfer office. The messenger returned in a moment empty-handed, and
told the astonished Secretary that Mr. Fisk had met him at the door,
taken the books, and 'run away with them!' On the same day the
convertible bonds corresponding to these certificates were placed on the
Secretary's desk, and as soon as Vanderbilt had forced up the price of
Erie, Fisk's new shares were thrown upon the market, and bought by
Vanderbilt's agents before their origin was suspected. Mr. Fisk
unfortunately had not yet cultivated the intimate relations with Judge
Barnard which he subsequently sustained. When the Drew party applied for
an order from Judge Gilbert in Brooklyn, enjoining Barnard's injunctions,
the petitioner who accused that ornament of the New York bench of a
corrupt conspiracy to speculate in Erie stock, was none other than Fisk's
partner, Mr. Belden. The next morning Barnard issued an order of arrest
for contempt, and Fisk, with the whole Erie Directory, fled to Jersey
City, carrying $7,000,000 of money and the books and papers of the
Company. Among the most valuable of the assets transferred on that
occasion to Taylor's Hotel was Miss Helen Josephine Mansfield. 'I went
to Jersey,' testified this fair creature some weeks ago, in the suit
which has just come to so tragical a termination, 'with the officers of
the Erie Company, and the railroad paid all the expense.' Mr. Fisk could
afford to amuse himself. He had made fifty or sixty thousand dollars by
his day's work in Broad street, and he had the satisfaction of knowing
that he had not only beaten Vanderbilt and Barnard, but outwitted even
his particular friend and patron, Mr. Drew. He had now practically the
greater share of the management on his shoulders, though in name he was
only Controller. He softened public indignation by subsidizing a gang of
ruffians, ostensibly in the Vanderbilt interest, to besiege 'Fort
Taylor,' as if for the purpose of kidnapping the Directors, and
organizing a band of railway hands to mount guard about the hotel. He
dogged the steps of Mr. Drew, who was stealing over to New York by night
to make a secret compromise for himself alone with Mr. Vanderbilt, and
when Drew carried off the funds of the Company, Fisk compelled him to
bring them back by putting an attachment on his money in bank. A bill
was now introduced at Albany to legalize Drew's over-issue of stock. It
was defeated. Mr. Gould visited the capital with half a million dollars,
and came back without a cent, and the bill which three weeks before had
been rejected by a vote of 83 to 32 was carried by a vote of 101 to 6.
This was followed by a general suspension of hostilities. The scandalous
network of injunctions had become so intricate that one general order was
obtained sweeping it all away. Judge Barnard was placated in some manner
not made public. Mr. Peter B. Sweeny, who, as the representative of
Tammany, had been appointed 'Receiver' of the property of the railway
company after it had been carried out of reach, was allowed $150,000 for
his trouble of taking care of nothing; and the exiles returned to New
York. In one of his characteristic fits of frankness, James Fisk
afterward on the witness stand described the settlement which ensued as
an 'almighty robbery.' The Directors of Erie took 50,000 shares of stock
off Vanderbilt's shoulders at 70, and gave him $1,000,000 besides.
Eldridge got $4,000,000 of Erie acceptances in exchange for $5,000,000 of
Boston, Hartford, and Erie, which became bankrupt very soon afterward.
Drew kept all he had made, but was to pay $540,000 into the Erie treasury
and stand acquitted of all claims the corporation might have against him.
Nearly half a million more was required to pay the lawyers and
discontinue the suits. Fisk, getting nothing personally, stood out
against the arrangement until the conspirators consented to give him--the
Erie Railroad! Drew and some others were to resign, and Fisk and Gould
to take possession of the property."
[Picture: JAY GOULD.]
Out of his first operations in Erie stock, Fisk is said to have made
$1,300,000. The Legislature of New York legalized his acts, through the
influence, it is said, of Mr. William M. Tweed. It is certain that this
act was followed by the entrance of Tweed and Sweeny into the Board of
Directors.
Once in possession of the Erie road, Fisk and his colleagues managed it
in their own interests. It was commonly believed in the city that Fisk
was but the executor of the designs which were conceived by an abler
brain than his own.
He figured largely in the infamous Black Friday transactions of Wall
street, and is credited by the public with being one of the originators
of that vast conspiracy to destroy the business of the street. How near
he came to success has already been shown.
Soon after coming into possession of the Erie road, he purchased Pike's
Opera House for $1,000,000 in the name of the Erie Railway Company. The
Directors, however, refused to approve the transaction, and he refunded
to them the amount of the purchase, taking the building on his private
account, and repaying the road in some of its stock owned by him.
Subsequently he leased the front building to the road at an enormous
rent, and opened for it a suite of the most gorgeous railway offices in
the world. He subsequently bought the Fifth Avenue Theatre, and the
Central Park Garden, and the Bristol line of steamers, and the steamers
plying in connection with the Long Branch Railway. He made himself
"Admiral" of this magnificent fleet, and dressed himself in a gorgeous
naval uniform. When President Grant visited the Coliseum Concert at
Boston, Fisk accompanied him in this dress, having previously played the
part of host to the President during the voyage down the Sound on one of
his boats. A year or two previous to his death, he was elected Colonel
of the Ninth Regiment of the National Guard.
Previous to his purchase of the Grand Opera House, Mr. Fisk was an
unknown man, but the ownership of this palatial establishment gave him an
opportunity of enjoying the notoriety he coveted. His career in
connection with this establishment, and his unscrupulous management of
the Erie Railway, soon made him notorious in all parts of America and
Europe. His monogram was placed on everything he owned or was connected
with, and he literally lived in the gaze of the public. He can scarcely
be said to have had any private life, for the whole town was talking of
his theatres, his dashing four in hand, his railway and steamboats, his
regiment, his toilettes, his magnificence, his reckless generosity, and
his love affairs. He had little regard for morality or public sentiment,
and hesitated at nothing necessary to the success of his schemes. His
great passion was for notoriety, and he cared not what he did so it made
people talk about him. He surrounded himself with a kind of barbaric
splendor, which won him the name of the "Prince of Erie." Some of his
acts were utterly ludicrous, and he had the wit to perceive it, but he
cared not so it made James Fisk, jr., the talk of the day. His influence
upon the community was bad. He had not only his admirers, but his
imitators, and these sought to reproduce his bad qualities rather than
his virtues.
In some respects he was a strange compound of good and evil. He was
utterly unprincipled, yet he was generous to a fault. No one ever came
to him in distress without meeting with assistance, and it adds to the
virtue of these good deeds that he never proclaimed them to the world.
Says one of his intimate friends: "His personal expenses were, at a
liberal estimate, not one-fifth as large as the amount which he spent in
providing for persons in whose affairs he took a kindly interest, who had
seen misfortune in life, and whom he felt to be dependent upon him for
assistance. He gave away constantly enormous amounts in still more
direct charities, concerning which he rarely spoke to any one, and it was
only by accident that even his most intimate friends found out what he
was doing. He supported for some years an entire family of blind persons
without ever saying a word about it to his nearest friends. He was
particularly generous towards actors and actresses, who, whenever they
suffered from misfortune, would always appeal to him; and one lady,
herself an actress of considerable repute and of very generous nature,
was in the habit of coming constantly to Mr. Fisk to appeal to him for
assistance to aged or unfortunate members of their profession, assistance
which he never refused. Very recently a lady, who was formerly a New
York favorite, but who made an unhappy marriage, and to escape from a
drunken husband had carried her child to England, where, after struggling
in provincial theatres for more than a year, she came to almost her last
penny and had hardly the means to return to this country, without a
change of clothing and without being able to bring away her child, made
her case known to the lady before-mentioned, who immediately, after
helping to the extent of her own scanty means, sent her with a note to
Mr. Fisk. Mr. Fisk listened to her story, advanced her $250 on the spot,
procured her an engagement in a theatre at $75 a week, and interested the
captain of one of our finest sea-going vessels in the case so far as to
provide a free passage for the child to this country, the captain, in
order to please Mr. Fisk, taking great pains to discover the whereabouts
of the child and restore her to its mother. These are but incidental
illustrations of what Mr. Fisk was daily doing, and always doing with the
utmost privacy and with the greatest reluctance to allow it to become
known. He would rarely subscribe to any public charity, because he
disliked to make any pretence of liberality before the public."
In the fall of 1867, Fisk made the acquaintance of Mrs. Helen Josephine
Mansfield, an actress, who had just been divorced from her husband, Frank
Lawler. He became deeply enamored of her, and she became his mistress
and lived with him several years, her main object being, it would seem,
to obtain from him all the money he was willing to expend upon her. Fisk
subsequently introduced one of his friends, Edward S. Stokes, to Mrs.
Mansfield, and the woman was not long in transferring her affections from
her protector to Stokes. This aroused Fisk's jealousy, and led to
constant trouble between his mistress and himself. His quarrel with
Stokes was complicated by business disputes, which were carried into the
courts, where Fisk was all powerful. The matter went from bad to worse,
until at length Stokes and Mrs. Mansfield instituted a libel suit against
Fisk, which was commonly regarded in the city as simply an attempt on
their part to extort money from him. The suit dragged its slow way
through the court in which it was instituted, and every day diminished
the chances of the success of the plaintiffs.
For reasons which he has not yet made public, Stokes now resolved to take
matters into his own hands, and on the afternoon of the 6th of January,
1872, waylaid Fisk, as the latter was ascending the private stairway of
the Grand Central Hotel, and, firing upon him twice from his hiding
place, inflicted on him severe wounds from which he died the next day.
The assassination was most cowardly and brutal, and awakened a feeling of
horror and indignation on the part of all classes.