Cornelius Vanderbilt

Cornelius Vanderbilt I (May 27, 1794 – January 4, 1877), also known by the sobriquets The Commodore or Commodore Vanderbilt , was an American entrepreneur who built his wealth in shipping and railroads and was the patriarch of the Vanderbilt family.

Vanderbilt was the fourth of nine children of Cornelius Vanderbilt and Phebe Hand, a family of modest means in Port Richmond on Staten Island in New York City.

His great-great-great-grandfather, Jan Aertson, was a Dutch farmer from the village of De Bilt in Utrecht, the Netherlands, who immigrated to New York as an indentured servant in 1650. The Dutch "van der" (of the) was eventually added to Aertson's village name to create "van der bilt", which was eventually condensed to Vanderbilt. Most of Vanderbilt's ancestry was English, with his last ancestor of Dutch origin being Jacob Vanderbilt, his grandfather. Cornelius Vanderbilt's business was railroads. His company name was the Accessory Transit Company.().

On December 19, 1813, Cornelius Vanderbilt married his cousin and neighbor, Sophia Johnson (1795-1868), daughter of his aunt Elizabeth Hand Johnson. He and his wife had 13 children, 12 of whom survived childhood.

Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, is named for Cornelius, and the university's mascot is the commodore.