Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 10.djvu/260

 VANDERBILT

VAN DE VELDE

a;:er of father.

come of $1,000,000 placed in trust, and his other son and his two daughters received equal shares of $7,500,000 each. He died in New York city, Sept. V2. 1^90.

VANDERBILT, William Henry, capitalist, was boni in New Brunswick, N.J., May 8. 18'J1; son of Ck)rnelius and Sopliia (Johnson) Vandei- bilt. He attended the grammar school of Colum- bia college, and in 1838 engaged in business as a sliip chandler, and later in the banking house of Drew, Rob- inson & Co. He was married in 1841, to INIaria Louisa, daugh- ter of the Rev. Sam- uel H. Kissam of •'''^ Brooklyn, and in

Uj;'" ^ 1842 failing health

^- -; '^;~"^^-.. caused his retirement

to a small farm at New Dorp, S. I. He was appointed re- ceiver of the Staten Island railroad and became business man- the railroads under the control of his He was vice-president of the Harlem and Hudson River railroads in 1SG4. and of the New York Central in 1865, and it was by his suggestion that the two roads were consolidated and a con- tinuous line from New York to Buffalo was established in 1869. On his father's deatli, in 1877, he became the president of the New York Central and Hudson River railroad, and also obtained control of the Lake Shore and Michi- gan Southern, the Michigan Central, the Chi- cago and Northwestern, and of the Cleve- land, Columbus, Cincinnati and Indianapolis railroads. On May 4, 1883, he resigned the office of president of the Vanderbilt system, and his sons, Cornelius and William Kissam, were elected to succeed him. In payment of a debt of $1")0,- 000, borrowed by General Grant from Mr. Van- derbilt, two days before the failure of Grant & Ward, Mr. Vanderbilt received from the general deeds of real estate, and his swords, medals and ])aintings, which he placed in the archives of the government at Washington. Mr. Vanderbilt erected a fine mansidu on Fifth Avenue, N.Y. city; presented $200,000 to the endowment of Vanderbilt university; $100,000 each for a theo- lugical school an<l liljrary in connection with the university; $.')00.000 to the College of Physicians and Surgeons; S-jO.OOO to the ciiurch of St. Bar- tholomew, and in 1881 he gave $10.3,000 for the removal of the obelisk from Alexandria, Egypt, to Central Park. N.Y. In his will, lie bequeathed $10,000,000 to each of his eight children, $2,000,-

000 more to his eldest son, Cornelius, $1,000,000 to Cornelius, the eldest son of the latter, and the residuary estate to his two eldest sons, Cornelius and William Kissam, subject to the paj'ment of an annuity of $200,000 to the widow. While en- gaged, at his residence, in a spirited discussion of railroad matters with Robert Garrett, the president of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, he was suddenly attacked witii apoplexy, and died in his study in New York city, Dec. 8, 1883.

VANDERLYN, John, artist, was born in Kingston, N.Y., Oct. 15, 1775, of Dutch descent. He attended Kingston academy; was appren- ticed to a wagon-painter in New York city, 1791, where he studied drawing at the school of Archi- bald Robertson, and subsequently, as the protege of Aaron Burr, continued his art-studies under Gilbert Stuart in Philadelpiiia, Pa., and in 1796 was sent by his patron to Paris, France. During his brief return to the United States, 1801-03, he painted portraits of Burr and his daughter,^ Theodosia, and also two views of Niagara Falls. He spent the years 1803-15 in England, France and Italy, executing some of his best work dur- ing this period, and upon his return to the United States devoted himself chiefly to portrait-paint- ing. He became financially involved Ijj' the building of the rotunda in New York city, where he exhibited several panoramas. These not prov- ing successful, he retired to Kingston, N.Y., where he continued to reside until his death, with the exception of the years, 1842-44, spent in Europe, where he executed his order from con- gress, The Landing of Cohimbus, for the capitol at AVashington, D.C. This canvas, altliough his own conception and design, was largely the work of other artists. It was subsequently engraved for the U.S. five-dollar bank notes. His paint- ings include; Death of Miss McCrea, for Joel Barlow; Marius amid the Ruins of Carthage, (1807), which was awarded the Napoleon gold medal at the Louvre in 1808. and became the prop- erty of Bishop Kip; Ariadne (1812), in the Penn- sylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and the portrait subjects: Washington, for the national house of representatives; Monroe (in New York city hall), Jackson, Calhoun, Randolph and others. His portraits of Burr, Robert R. Livingston (1804), Roger Strong and Henry Benson (1823), came into the possession of the New York Historical society. See: " Recollections of John Vander- lyn, the Artist" by Bishop Kip in t\\e Atlantic Monthly, February, 18G7. He died in Kingston, N.Y., Sept. 23, 1852.

VAN DE VELDE, James Oliver, R.C. bishop, ■was born near Termonde. Belgium, April 3, 1795. He was educated by private instructors, and in private schools; was professor of French and Flemish in Puers, 1813; subsequently a student