Page:The Wizard of Wall Street and his Wealth.djvu/67

 this by giving the famous financier his first introduction into the railroad business. Mr. Miller owned some shares in the Rutland and Washington railroad. He asked his son-in-law to look the property over and see if anything could be done to save the investment. The road was sixty-two miles long, running from Troy, New York, to Rutland, Vermont. The panic of 1857 had left this road in a demoralized condition, and Gould found that he could buy a majority of the first mortgage bonds at ten cents on the dollar. He had now found the true field for his peculiar talent. He made himself president, treasurer and general superintendent of the road, studied the business of railroading on the ground, developed the local traffic, and finally effected the Rensselaer and Saratoga Consolidation. By this time, both bonds and stocks were good and he sold the latter for one hundred and twenty dollars.

There has been no time when it was possible to estimate the wealth of Mr. Gould, and as he was secretive in those early days as in his later, there was no saying what he was worth when in 1860 he came into Wall street. One statement has it that when the firm of Smith, Gould & Martin was organized, Mr. Gould's possessions amounted to thirty thousand dollars in cash. Another is that when he sold out his holdings in the Rensselaer and Saratoga Consolidation, he was worth seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

With a mind peculiarly alert to all the influences which affected the values of railway securities, with