William Henry Vanderbilt
American businessman (1821–1885)
William Henry Vanderbilt was an American businessman and railroad magnate. Known as "Billy", he was the eldest son of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, an heir to his fortune and a prominent member of the Vanderbilt family. Vanderbilt became the richest American after he took over his father's fortune in 1877 until his own death in 1885, passing on a substantial part of the fortune to his wife and children, particularly to his sons Cornelius II and William. He inherited nearly $100 million from his father. The fortune had doubled when he died fewer than nine years later.
“William Henry Vanderbilt” enters the record as american businessman (1821–1885). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what William, Henry and Vanderbilt can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “William Henry Vanderbilt” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.