How would the ladies make their investment decisions? That was easy, the Commodore responded. Mrs. Woodhull would go into a trance and predict the course of railroad stocks. “Do as I do,” he told one young man asking for stock advice, “consult the spirits.”100 The stock of the New York Central would be rising, he told another. How did he know? “Mrs

Two of William’s sisters, Ethelinda Allen (the beneficiary of a $400,000 trust fund) and Marie Alicia La Bau (the recipient of $250,000 of railroad bonds), along with William’s brother, Cornelius Jeremiah Vanderbilt (who had been given only the income from a $200,000 trust fund to be controlled by William), ganged up and decided to contest their fa

(Alva and a friend had once been at Woodlawn Cemetery, looking at a tomb of pink marble that an heiress had built for her husband. “Ridiculous! Absolutely ridiculous!” Alva opined. A workman who was nearby heard her. “Well,” he said, “if you think this is funny, go and look at that tomb over there where the crazy woman who built it has put cats on

Burning forty-two tons of coal each day, averaging thirteen knots, the North Star plowed across the Atlantic. Within several days, a routine had established itself. “There was discipline on board that ship, sir,” the Reverend Choules noted. “Each man attended to his own business. The Commodore did the swearing, and I did the praying. So we never di

If ever Scott Fitzgerald needed evidence to substantiate his aphorism that “the very rich…are different from you and me,” it was here in spades in this portrait gallery of extravagant crazies that is the unique saga of the Vanderbilt family.

“My life was never destined to be quite happy,” he told them. “It was laid out along lines which I could not foresee, almost from earliest childhood. It has left me with nothing to hope for, with nothing definite to seek or strive for. Inherited wealth is a real handicap to happiness. It is as certain death to ambition as cocaine is to morality.”

Grace was spending $250,000 each year to entertain her friends and maintain her position as Mrs. Vanderbilt, $125,000 more each year than her and Neily’s annual income. The expenses of running 640 Fifth Avenue and of paying taxes for the privilege of having a home on a piece of the world’s most expensive urban real estate amounted to over $1,000 do

“If a man makes money, no matter how much, he finds a certain happiness in its possession, for in the desire to increase his business, he has a constant use for it. But the man who inherits it has none of this. The first satisfaction, and the greatest, that of building the foundation of a fortune, is denied him. He must labor, if he does labor, sim

As would be expected, while everyone attended to his or her own business, the Commodore attended to everyone else’s business. One evening after dinner, he walked up to his thirty-three-year-old son Billy, who was enjoying a cigar on the deck. “Billy, I wish you would quit that smoking habit of yours. I’ll give you ten thousand dollars if you do.” “