During the remarkable period of commercial and industrial
development in this country from 1870 onward, when thousands of
miles of new lines were built every year, when the growth of
population was beginning to make the States of Ohio, Indiana, and
Illinois centers of wealth and production, and when the wonderful
Northwestern country embracing the States of Michigan, Wisconsin,
and Minnesota, was so rapidly opened up and brought nearer to the
Eastern markets, the Vanderbilt railroad interests were not idle.
The original genius, Cornelius Vanderbilt, was soon gathered to
his fathers, but his son, William H. Vanderbilt, was in many ways
a worthy successor.

By 1885 the Vanderbilt lines had grown in extent and importance
far beyond any point of which the elder Vanderbilt had ever
dreamed. Long before this year the system included many smaller
lines within the State of New York, and it had also acquired
close control of the great Lake Shore and Michigan Southern
system, with its splendid line from Buffalo to Chicago,
consisting of more than 500 miles of railroad; the Michigan
Central, owning lines from Detroit to Chicago, with many branches
in Michigan and Illinois; the Canada Southern Railway, extending
from Detroit to Toronto; and in addition to all these about 800
miles of other lines in the States of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan,
and Pennsylvania.

In this same year 1885, another event of importance took place.
The New York, West Shore and Buffalo Railroad, which after
strenuous efforts extending over many years had constructed a new
trunk line from Weehawken along the west shore of the Hudson to
Albany and thence to Buffalo, came under the control of the New