ge,
and he was one of the handsomest, the most agile and athletic, young
fellows that either Island could show. Young as he was, there was that
in his face and bearing which gave assurance that he was abundantly
competent to his work. He was always at his post betimes, and on the
alert for a job. He always performed what he undertook. This summer of
1810 was his first season, but he had already an ample share of the
best of the business of the harbor.

Cornelius Vanderbilt was the name of this notable youth,--the same
Cornelius Vanderbilt who has since built a hundred steamboats, who has
since made a present to his country of a steamship of five thousand
tons' burden, who has since bought lines of railroad, and who reported
his income to the tax commissioners, last year at something near three
quarters of a million. The first money the steamboat-king ever earned
was by carrying passengers between Staten Island and New York at
eighteen cents each.

His father, who was also named Cornelius, was the founder of the
Staten Island ferry. He was a thriving farmer on the Island as early
as 1794, tilling his own land near the Quarantine Ground, and
conveying his produce to New York in his own boat. Frequently he would
carry the produce of some of his neighbors, and, in course of time, he
ran his boat regularly, leaving in the morning and returning at night,
during the whole of the summer, and thus he established a ferry which
has since become one of the most profitable in the world, carrying
sometimes more than twelve thousand passengers in a day. He was an
industrious, enterprising, liberal man, and early acquired a property
which for that time was affluence. His wife was a singularly wise and
energetic woman. She was the main stay of the family, since her
husband was somewhat too liberal for his means, and not always prudent
in his projects. Once, when her husband had fatally involved himself,
and their farm was in danger of being sold for a debt of three
thousand dollars, she produced, at the last extremity, her private
store, and counted out the whole sum in gold pieces. She lived to the
great age of eighty-seven, and left an estate of fifty thousand
dollars, the fruit of her own industry and prudence. Her son, like
many other distinguished men, loves to acknowledge that whatever he
has, and whatever he is that is good, he owes to the precepts, the
example, and the judicious government of his mother.

Cornelius, the elde