Excerpt from The Erie Railroad Row: Considered as an Episode in Court

Commodore Vanderbilt, some years previous to the occurrences here referred to, had transferred the scene of his Operations from the sea to dry land, and had become the great railroad, as before he had been the steamboat, king. He was, at this time, rapidly obtaining control of all the great thoroughfares leading from New York to the West. Beginning with the Harlem road, he had then taken possession of the Hudson River, and, finally, of the New York Central, and was now stretching out his hands to grasp the Erie, the peculiar property of Mr. Drew. In September, 1867, Mr. Drew had been rudely shaken on his throne as autocrat of the Erie, and even defeated at the annual election of the directors of the road. An entirely new board was then elected, which knew Vanderbilt, but knew not Drew. The Commodore, however, not foreseeing the future, did not press his advantage; and it was arranged that a member of the new board should resign his posi tion, and, Mr. Drew, having been elected in his place, was re instated in his old position of treasurer. Now Mr. Drew, it appears, had long been concerned in operations, sometimes looking to a rise, but more usually to a fall, in the value of the securities of the Erie road. Under his skilful manipulation Erie had, for years, fluctuated widely; but, while in it many fortunes had been made and lost in a single day, the particular fortune of Daniel Drew had prospered greatly. The brokers and operators of Wall Street, as the result of long observation, had finally con cluded that the ways of the Speculative Director were past finding out. In April, 1861, Erie had sold at 17, and in March.

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