Page:How to Get Strong (1899).pdf/389

 His enormous head is referred to elsewhere (page 362). But, as his portrait shows, there was ample body to sustain the great intellect, and to carry him through more than seventy years of vigorous, active life.

"Born at Port Richmond, Staten Island, New York, May 27, 1794, of Dutch stock—the eldest of nine children; his father raised vegetables at Stapleton, and sold them in New York, then a city of eighty thousand inhabitants. Like other market-gardeners, he was his own boatman, and also that of several of his neighbors; and was the originator of the Staten Island ferry. 'Corned' made many trips in charge of his father's boat; he offered his mother, before he was seventeen, to plough, harrow, and plant eight acres of rough land for one hundred dollars. The time was short, the undertaking physically impossible for one youth; but 'Corneel,' with a spirit of his own, quickly secured the aid of a number of playmates, and earned the hundred dollars, which was the foundation of his splendid fortune. With a boat obtained with this money, a better one than his father's—''he earned in three years three thousand dollars. He gave most of this to his mother;'' but invested a small part in two other boats; so he was master of three handy vessels, one of them a periagua, capable of carrying twenty people, the best of her class in the harbor. He operated the mosquito fleet for several years; the fare was eighteen cents. The war of 1812 greatly increased travel to Staten Island, owing to the placing of garrisons at The Narrows. In 1814 he got the contract to carry men and supplies to the harbor forts, after a lively competition with others; he was not the lowest bidder; but his reputation for energy brought him the contract; the trips between Ward's Island, Hell Gate, Harlem, and The Narrows occupied him constantly for many months. At nineteen he moved to New York, kept up his Staten Island boats, but also went into trade with Hudson River boats and Long Island Sound coasters; he owned several boats, sloops, and schooners, sailed them to every point in the harbor and the waters contiguous thereto, and learned to know every inch of the geography of this coast. Fulton was developing his steamboat, and Vanderbilt, in 1818, became captain of the Bellona at one