By Walter W. Ristow

WHEN HE DIED on December 3, 1892, Jay Gould was the wealthiest, as well as the most despised, man in the United States. In an era of free enterprise and rugged individualism, the undersized and sickly Gould proved to be one of the most cunning and crafty manipulators, and the greatest financial freebooter and buccaneer in the nation's history.

In an age famed for its lusty and acquisitive robber barons, none of his contemporaries, it was said, quite approached Gould's 'genius for trickery and thimble-rigging, his boldness in corruption and subornation, his talent for strategic betrayal, his mastery over stock and bond rigging, his daring in looting a company and defrauding its stockholders. [1]



Jay Gould's ruthless amassing of wealth was the antithesis of the traditional All-American boy in the inspirational stories of Horatio Alger, late nineteenth century novelist. Jay's boyhood and youth were, however, very much in the pattern of Alger's simon pure heroes, and Gould's initial successes were achieved in surveying and mapping, highly esteemed professions in the history and development of the United States.

Jason Gould, as he was christened, was born in West Settlement, Delaware County, New York, on May 27, 1836, the sixth child and first son of John Burr Gould and Mary Moore Gould. The latter died when Jay was only six years old, and his care and training were assumed by older sisters. Until he was fourteen years old, the lad attended Beechwood Academy in the nearby village of Roxbury, of which John Gould was a founder and patron. One of Jay's classmates at Beechwood was John Burroughs, who was to become the distinguished naturalist and author. The Burrough's farm, like the Gould's, was located on the lower slopes of the Catskill Mountains, some four miles north of Roxbury. It was not as productive as the Gould dairy farm, and John Burroughs recalled, some years later, that 'the Goulds were very pro­sperous, and naturally stiff-necked, and they lived in a little better style than the others farmers. [2]

 

Before and after classes at Beechwood Academy, Jay helped his father and sisters with chores on the farm. He was never physically strong, however, and he had little taste for farm life and work. John Gould hoped that his son might help run the farm after completing his studies at the Academy. Jay had other ideas, however, and proposed that he be permitted to continue his education at Hobart Academy, some fifteen miles northwest of Roxbury. The elder Gould, apparently convinced that Jay was adamantly opposed to a farming career, granted permission, with the provision that the boy support himself.

In the autumn of 1850, Jay, who was then fourteen years old, walked the fifteen miles from his home to Hobart. He obtained a job as a clerk in a local store, and contracted to work for his room and board. Jay's scholastic interests were primarily in mathematics and surveying, and he soon acquired all the knowledge in these subjects that the instructors could offer. To supplement this rudimentary training, Jay often arose at three o'clock in the morning to study engineering and surveying books, before beginning his duties in the store three hours later.

In 1851, John Gould exchanged his dairy farm for a residence and hardware store in Roxbury, and Jay returned to the village to keep the books and help manage the store. In such spare time that was available, he continued his surveying studies. Jay remained in Roxbury through the winter of 1851­52, but gladly terminated his hardware career in the spring of the latter year, when he was offered a job as a surveyor's assistant.

His new employer, John J. Snyder, agreed to pay the sixteen year old boy twenty dollars a month and keep, for conducting surveys of Ulster County, which borders Delaware County on the east. Snyder's wife was bedridden and unable to prepare meals, however, and Jay later confided to a friend that he had never been so near starved as when he boarded with the Snyders. To compound matters, John Snyder was heavily in debt and unable to pay the young assistant.


Jay accordingly joined in a partnership with two other of Snyder's assistants, Oliver J. Tillson and Peter Henry Brink, to complete the Ulster County map. Headquarters were set up in the home of Tillson's parents, some ten miles south of Kingston, the county seat. Three decades later, in a letter to Helen Gould Miller, Jay's daughter, Tillson described the procedures of the three young surveyors. 'Our manner of work', he wrote, 'was to start out in the forepart of the week, each taking a separate road to survey and return to my father's home the last of the week. We used an instrument called an odometer (similar to a wheelbarrow), which measured distances, and a Compass to take angles and directions. [3]
 
Field work in Ulster County was completed in about two months, after which the three partners drafted the map in the Tillson home. At this stage in the project, as Tillson related to Gould's daughter, Jay 'became discontented and wished to sell his interest. He did not wish to incur the expense of his share of the engraving and publishing charges ... We therefore auctioned off between us the various books and instruments, etc., and I personally bought his interest in the map and took his receipt, dated Dec. 27, 1852. [4]  Writing in 1894, Tillson recalled that he bought Gould's interest in the map for forty dollars. Other accounts state that Gould received as much as five hundred dollars. The actual payment received by Gould was probably around two hundred dollars, the amount Tillson subsequently paid to Brink for the latter's interest in the map.

The 'Map of Ulster County, New York, From Original Surveys by Oliver J. Tillson and P. Henry Brink', was published in 1853. Brink and Tillson are also listed as the publishers. Jay Gould's name does not appear anywhere on the map, which measures approximately 1016 x 1145mm. Town­ships are outlined and names of all landowners are given. The map includes roads, canals, and rivers, as well as generalized topography. There are inset maps of the villages of Saugerties, Rondout, and Kingston, and fifteen border illustrations of churches, cemeteries, industrial plants, banks, academies, and public buildings.

Lithography and printing were contracted to Robert Pearsall Smith, of Philadelphia, who was heavily involved in county map production during the 1850s, particularly in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York. [5] Smith served as a liaison between local county surveyors and lithographers and printers, most of whom were at the time located in Philadelphia. Smith himself did not operate a lithographic printing plant.


The cost of printing the Ulster County map was two hundred dollars, plus sixty dollars for the views and nine dollars for proof alterations. A second, revised edition was published in 1854. Unlike the first edition, it carries a copyright registration notice in Tillson's name. In October, 1853, four hundred copies of the map were delivered to Tillson, who apparently sold them directly to users, or distributed them to dealers in the several cities and towns in the county. The retail price for the Ulster County map was five dollars.

During the decade 1850 to 1860, there was great activity in county mapping, particularly in New England, the Middle Atlantic States, and in the states north of the Ohio River. This was largely stimulated by the adaptation of lithography to map printing in the United States. The new technique was less costly and more expedient than that previously employed, i.e., reproduction from copper engraved plates. By drafting maps with an appropriate ink, it was possible to transfer the image from paper to a lithographic stone, from which multiple copies could be printed. Local surveyors could, therefore, have their county maps printed at reasonable cost. Philadelphia and New York City were, at the time, the principal centres for lithographic printing.

Around 1852, Robert P. Smith and an associate, John Delafield of Se ne ca County, New York, sought to have the New York State Legislature pass a bill requiring each school district to purchase a map of the state, as well as one of the pertinent county. [6] Smith negotiated with various local surveyors to prepare county maps from which a map of New York State was to be compiled.


Tillson and Brink were among the first county map surveyors with whom Smith negotiated. His plans are revealed in a letter, dated January 4, 1853. From Albany, Smith wrote, 'As arranged in our interview .... I hereby agree to furnish an engraving [i.e. a lithographic reproduction] of your new map of Ulster County, New York ... without charge or cost to you. In repayment you give me the full use of the said map ... for use and reduction for a State map of New York. You also give me the privilege of taking as many impressions as may be necessary for supplying schools by a contract with the State of New York - which use for a State map and copies for schools are to be without charge to me the engraving furnished being full compensation therefore. The engraving is to include four views reductions of plans of villages for the margin and any other matter you may wish to insert. The copyright is to be taken out and owned by me you having the privilege of making any town maps from the surveys. I am privileged to give away a few copies but am not to sell any copies except for schools. [7]
 
Tillson and Brink, apparently did not sign a contract with Smith for, as noted, Tillson personally registered the Ulster map for copyright. A number of other surveyors did, however, sign agreements with Smith, and the copyrights for their maps were registered in his name.


After he had received payment from Tillson for his rights in the Ulster map, Jay Gould went to Albany where, in the autumn and winter of 1852-1853, he enrolled in Albany Academy. There is reason to believe that J ay became acquainted in Albany with Robert P. Smith and John Delafield, and with the proposed act to provide state and county maps to all school districts, which was introduced in both houses of the Legislature in January 1853.

Gould was apparently impressed with the potential benefits to surveyors if the law were enacted. This induced him to have another try at county mapping. He chose Albany County and, in the summer of 1853, he and his cousin, LB. Moore, carried out surveys. The map title indicates that it was 'Drawn by Jay Gould', and he probably spent the latter months of 1853 at this task. Gould probably solicited advance subscriptions for the map in Albany as well as in some of the larger villages and towns. Jay seems also to have promoted the idea of including marginal sketches of the homes of some of the more affluent residents, on a fee basis. The 'Map of Albany County' has thirty-one illustrations, of which eighteen are of private homes.
There is no copyright registration notice on the first edition of the Albany map. A second edition, which appears to have few if any changes, was registered for copyright in 1854 by Robert Pearsall Smith. This confirms that Smith and Gould were business associates. It seems unlikely, however, as some accounts state, that Gould was a major collaborator, with Smith and Delafield, on the legislative proposal heretofore mentioned.

Work on the Albany County map brought Jay several other commissions, including one from the Cohoes Manufacturing Company, to prepare a map of the village of Cohoes, located to the north of Albany. He apparently conducted this survey also during the summer of 1853. The map, which is undated, was probably published in 1854. It is titled 'Map of Cohoes New York. Published by Gould and More. Drawn by J. Gould.' The map may have been completed before Gould's contact with R.P. Smith, for it was lithographed and printed by Sarony & Major, of New York City. There is a panoramic view of Cohoes Village, a sketch of Great Cohoes Falls, and a Cohoes Business Directory in the margins. Gould received six hundred dollars for his work on the Cohoes map.

Jay is credited with having also surveyed, in 1853, part of the route for the Albany to Shakers plank road. While engaged in the survey Gould reported to a former surveying instructor, James Oliver, that 'I succeeded in everything without any trouble until I came to making the estimates of cost, embankments, excavations, and culverts, especially the em­bankments and excavations, when I came nearly being floored for a second time. But just then Gillespie [author of a surveying textbook of the period] stepped in with his Roads and Railroads where I found the proper information. [8]



The road survey was completed in March 1853 and, with no other jobs forthcoming, Gould decided to prepare a map of his home county, Delaware. He returned to Roxbury and set up a small office above his father's hardware store. To insure a good reception for the proposed map, Jay prepared a prospectus which he mailed, on April 30, 1854, to residents throughout the county, soliciting their patronage. He engaged several assistants to do the actual surveying for, as he once wrote to a friend, 'to tell the plain truth, my education in surveying is made up of the leisure time I had in the tinshop the winter before I went to Ulster, and all I have gained since has been of a practical character, so you see I do not possess a thorough knowledge of the important principles that are involved in this pursuit. [9]
 
One assistant was John Champlin, who married Ellen More, one of Jay's cousins. Champlin remained in surveying for but a short time and, after completing work on the Delaware map, he moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan where he read law in the office of an older brother. He subsequently became professor of law at the University of Michigan and, later in his career John Champlin served as Chief Justice of the Michigan State Supreme Court.

Jay also sought the aid of local newspaper editors to help promote the Delaware County map. The technique of gentle pressure he employed was a portent of subsequent financial manoeuvring. On his seventeenth birthday, Gould made a small cash contribution to a Delaware County newspaper, the Bloomsville Mirror, which was edited and published by his good friend, Simon B. Champion. Several months after this act of generosity, Jay wrote to Champion, 'thus far in this State, without exception, these [county] maps have met with unbounded success, having been liberally and, some of them, munificently countenanced by the Supervisors and sometimes by individuals. In Delaware County the Supervisors ought to encourage it by having a map for each of the School Districts. I wan t you to give me an editorial to this effect. [10]

This letter suggests that Gould was also advancing the proposal of John Delafield and Robert Pearsall Smith, which had been under consideration in the 1853 State Legislature. It is very probable, in fact, that Jay undertook the task of surveying and mapping Delaware County as part of Smith's and Delafield's overall plan for compiling a map of New York State from the county maps. Regrettably, the proposed map bill was tabled before the legislative session ended in June 1853. In October of that year John Delafield died suddenly, apparently following a heart attack. Smith, nonetheless, with other associates carried out the plan to compile and publish a state map, the first edition of which appeared in 1859, and a gazetteer of New York State, which was published the following year. The latter has a 'List of Persons Employed Upon the Construction of the State Map and the Preparation of the Gazetteer', which includes the name of Jay Gould, under the heading, 'Surveyors and Statisticians'. Tillson and Brink are not listed.


While engaged in soliciting subscriptions, and directing his assistants, Jay also gathered information and anecdotes about the early history and prominent residents of Delaware County. With this data, and his own recollections, he wrote a History of Delaware County. Some accounts note that Gould, in the summer and autumn of 1854, also conducted surveys for a portion of a proposed railroad between Newburgh and Syracuse, New York. Several Gould biographers also state that he conducted surveys for maps of Greene and Sullivan Counties both of which, like Ulster County, adjoin Delaware County on the east. Maps of the two counties were copyrighted by R.P. Smith and, like Gould's 'Map of Delaware County,' were published in 1856. Neither, however, has any reference to Gould in its title or credits. It is possible that Jay did plan the surveys of Greene and Sullivan Counties, and engaged assistants to carry out the field work .. Because of his several illnesses, and his diminishing interest in surveying, Gould apparently also sold his interests in these maps before they were published.

The strenuous activity drew heavily upon the strength and endurance of his frail body and shortly after completing the railroad survey Jay was prostrated with a severe case of typhoid fever. When he recovered he completed, with his assistants, work on the Delaware County map and on the History of Delaware County. Rights to the former were sold to Robert Pearsall Smith, under whose name the map was registered for copyright. Gould, reportedly, received for the map one thousand dollars, in addition to reimbursement for wages of his assistants and other incidental expenses.


It appeared in 1856 under the title 'Map of Delaware Co. New York From actual survey By Jay Gould. Published by Collins G. Keeney. No. 17 & 19 Minor St. Philadelphia, 1856'. Although Keeney was a Roxbury printer, the publishing address is actually that which appears on many county maps issued under Smith's sponsorship. The Delaware County map measures 1422 x 1422mm, includes the names of all land and property owners, shows generalised relief, roads, and admin­istrative boundaries, and has inset maps of a number of towns and villages. On the map of Roxbury the shop and residence of John B. Gould can be located. There are twenty marginal illustrations, among them sketches of the residences of affluent citizens. The map is said to have sold well and, as noted, was used by Smith and his associates in compiling the map of New York State, which was published in 1859.

Early in 1855, while returning from a business trip, Jay became seriously ill with tuberculosis, the illness which ultimately caused his death. He was detained in Moresville, seven miles north of Roxbury, where he received treatment in the home of Or. A.O. Howell. After an extended period there, Jay returned to Roxbury, where he gave up most activities to rest and regain his strength. He did manage to work part time in his father's store, to teach a course in surveying in Roxbury Academy, and to complete writing the History of Delaware County.

The manuscript for the book was delivered to the print shop of Robb, Pile, and McElroy, on Lodge Street in Philadelphia, early in 1856. On April 30 of that year there was a disastrous fire in Philadelphia which destroyed or seriously damaged a number of printing establishments, including that of Robb and associates. In Chapter X of his book Could observed that 'the reader ... has already been made aware of the almost total destruction of this work by fire. And this misfortune appears nowhere more evident than in the present chapter. Several of the first pages of the manu­script, containing much valuable and important information are thus irremediably lost.' Jay is reported to have gone to Philadelphia, salvaged what remained of the manuscript, and rewritten most of the destroyed parts.


The volume, published in 1856, is titled History of Delaware County and Border Wars of New York, Containing a Sketch of the Early Settlements in the County and a History of the Late Anti-Rent Difficulties in Delaware with Other Historical and Miscellaneous Matter, Never Before Published. By Jay Could. Roxbury: Keeny & Could, Publishers, 1856. Jay Could is said never to have referred, in later years, to this, his sole literary work. There was, moreover, no copy of the book in the fairly extensive personal library he had assembled, and which was sold following his death.

By 1856 Could appears to have tired of mapping and publishing and he disposed of his rights in the book as he had in his several maps. He reportedly received around five thousand dollars for his cartographic works and The History of Delaware County.

With this capital accumulation, Jay established a partnership with Zadok Pratt, a former Congressman and wealthy industrialist, to operate a tannery in eastern Pennsylvania. Pratt, impressed with the energetic and industrious youth, invested $120,000 in the project while Jay contributed five thousand dollars, plus his services, talents, and managerial abilities. The tannery was immensely successful and Gould, without the knowledge of his absentee partner, speculated heavily with the firm's funds. When Pratt became aware of the situation he proposed dissolving the partnership, offering to sell out for half his investment, or to buy Jay's interest.

To Pratt's surprise, Jay chose to acquire his interest for $60,000. The purchase money was obtained from Charles Leupp, a New York City leather dealer, who became Gould's second unfortunate partner. Leupp, too, was outwitted and swindled by Jay and, despondent and ruined financially, he committed suicide. Gould retained the tannery for several years, resisting efforts by Leupp's brother-in-law to gain control. In 1860, however, he closed the plant, moved to New York and entered in earnest on his financial manoeuvrings.

The remainder of Gould's career bears little resemblance to the bright years of his youth, when he practised the respected professions of surveying and mapping, which had been the early vocations also of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and other American patriots and leaders.

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COPYRIGHT June 1979 The Map Collector, All rights reserved.
No portion of this article nor the accompanying illustrations can or may be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.

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References:

1. Richard O'Connor. Could's Millions. Garden City, New York, Doubleday, 1962, p.13.
2. Ibid., p.I7-I8.
3. J. Oliver. Tillson Papers.' In Collection of Regional History and Archives, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, New York.
4. Ibid.
5. See 'The Map Publishing Career of Robert Pearsall Smith,' by Waiter W. Ristow, in The Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress, vo!' 26, July 1969, p.170-196.
6. See 'The French-Smith Map and Gazetteer of New York State,' by Waiter W. Ristow, in The Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress, vo!' 36, (scheduled for Winter, 1979, p.68-90).
7. Tillson Papers.
8. Alice Northrop Snow, The Story of Helen Could, New York, Revell, 1943, p.82.
9. Robert Irving Warshaw, Jay Could, the Story of a Fortune.New York, Greenburg, 1928, p.34.
10. Ibid., p.34.
11. Jay Gould, History of Delaware County and Border Wars of New York. Roxbury, Keeny & Gould, 1856, p.226.