Page:The Wizard of Wall Street and his Wealth.djvu/24

 CHAPTER II.

YOUTH AND ANCESTRY OF JAY GOULD.

Many who knew Mr. Gould intimately are in the habit of asserting that his origin must have been Hebraic. No one pretends to say how many generations back the Jewish blood was in the family, or that Mr. Gould was aware of its existence in him. But both his names, Jason, or Jay, and Gould, served to strengthen this belief in those who held it. The twisted form, "Gould," was suspected of being changed from "Gold," which is a common prefix in the names of inanimate and natural objects which certain Jews in Europe were compelled to adopt as surnames in one period of their history. His habits of thought and his extraordinary intellect were both Jewish, these people assert, with how much or how little basis in the actual fact of his origin, no one can ever decide.

Mr. Gould was certainly American in the character and extent of his self-creation and success. Born of poor parents, on a poorer farm, he began to make money to pay his way through school, and he was a partner in business enterprises while yet a lad.

But so far as Mr. Gould himself has been able to decide, he came of Puritan stock than which none is more diametrically removed from the Hebraic.