not the Harlem. The capital of the consolidated
company was placed at ninety million dollars, a figure of such magnitude
in those days that the world was startled. The system embraced in
all nearly 850 miles of railroad lines. A few years later the Harlem
Railroad was leased to the property at a high valuation and a large
dividend was guaranteed on the stock, the ownership of which was
retained by the Vanderbilt family.

The Vanderbilt system as it is now understood really began with these
transactions. From this time on, its history has been similar in many
respects to that of other large systems which were the outgrowth of
merger or manipulation in these early days. During the remarkable period
of commercial and industrial development in this country from 1870
onward, when thousands of miles of new lines were built every year,
when the growth of population was beginning to make the States of Ohio,
Indiana, and Illinois centers of wealth and production, and when
the wonderful Northwestern country embracing the States of Michigan,
Wisconsin, and Minnesota, was so rapidly opened up and brought nearer
to the Eastern markets, the Vanderbilt railroad interests were not idle.
The original genius, Cornelius Vanderbilt, was soon gathered to his
fathers, but his son, William H. Vanderbilt, was in many ways a worthy
successor.

By 1885 the Vanderbilt lines had grown in extent and importance far
beyond any point of which the elder Vanderbilt had ever dreamed. Long
before this year the system included many smaller lines within the State
of New York, and it had also acquired close control of the great Lake
Shore and Michigan Southern system, with its splendid line from Buffalo
to Chicago, consisting of more than 500 miles of railroad; the Michigan
Central, owning lines from Detroit to Chicago, with many branches in
Michigan and Illinois; the Canada Southern Railway, extending from
Detroit to Toronto; and in addition to all these about 800 miles of
other lines in the States of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

In this same year 1885, another event of importance took place. The New
York, West Shore and Buffalo Railroad, which after strenuous efforts
extending over many years had constructed a new trunk line from
Weehawken along the west shore of the Hudson to Albany and thence to
Buffalo, came under the control of the New York Central. The great
system in the Middle West, now known as the "Big Four," or Cleveland,
Cincin