George Jay Gould


George Jay Gould I was a financier and the son of Jay Gould. He was himself a railroad executive, leading the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad, Western Pacific Railroad, and Manhattan Railway.

Early life

Gould was born on February 6, 1864, the eldest son of Jay Gould and Helen Day Miller. His father was a leading American railroad developer and speculator who has been referred to as one of the ruthless robber barons of the Gilded Age, whose success at business made him one of the richest men of his era.

Railroad management

Upon his father's death George inherited the Gould fortune and his father's railroad holdings, including the DRGW and the Missouri Pacific Railroad. While in charge of the DRGW at the turn of the 20th century, he sent surveyors and engineers through California's Feather River canyon to stake out a route for the railroad to reach San Francisco, California. Through legal wranglings led by E. H. Harriman, who at the time led both the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific Railroads, Gould was forced to set up third-party companies to manage the surveying and construction to disguise his role. The route that Gould's engineers built became the WP mainline.
In later years, the DRGW and WP would work together on trains that were passed off to each other in Salt Lake City, Utah, including the prestigious passenger train, the California Zephyr.

Personal life

He married Edith Mary Kingdon, a stage actress, and had the following children:
George Gould also had a mistress, Guinevere Jeanne Sinclair, and had the following children with her:
After the death of his first wife in 1921, Gould married Sinclair on May 1, 1922. Then with the three children in tow, they moved to England.

Death and burial

He died of pneumonia on May 16, 1923, on the French Riviera after contracting a fever in Egypt where he visited the tomb of Tutankhamun. He was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in New York. His estate was valued at $15,054,627 but after debts were paid it was worth $5,175,590 in 1933 dollars.

Legacy

Gould's estate in Lakewood Township, New Jersey is now the site of Georgian Court University.

Timeline