Jay Gould, twenty-one in 1857, invests five…

Jay Gould, twenty-one in 1857, invests five thousand dollars in the leather business and begins speculating in railroad stocks.

Born on a dairy farm in Roxbury, New York, Gould had studied at the Hobart Academy, but left at age sixteen to work for his father in the hardware business.

He continued to devote himself to private study, emphasizing surveying and mathematics.

Gould later went to work in the lumber and tanning business in western New York, then became involved with banking in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania.

He had published the History of Delaware County, New York in 1856.