Rare Free Frank of Jay Gould, One of the Great Robber Barons of the Gilded Age, Written During the Civil War

Jay Gould was a railroad magnate and financial speculator who is generally identified as one of the Robber barons of the Gilded Age. His sharp and often unscrupulous business practices made him one of the wealthiest men of the late nineteenth century. A small yellow envelope addressed in his hand and franked by him at the upper right “Free Jay Gould P.M. [Postmaster] Gouldsboro, Pa.” Very good condition, addressed in his hand to “Wm. Law, Esq. Shushan, Washington Co. N.Y.” postmarked from Rutland, Vermont, where he was conducting business relative to a railroad. Gould spent little time in Gouldsboro as he was always traveling on business. Franking an envelope as Postmaster of a town in a different state from where the letter was mailed may technically not be illegal but comes close, not that that would ever matter to Gould, especially since it saved him five cents postage.

In 1856, Gould entered a partnership with Zadock Pratt to create a tanning business in Pennsylvania in an area that was later named Gouldsboro. The partnership was successful, until the Panic of 1857.Leupp lost all his money in that financial crisis, but Gould took advantage of the depreciation in property value and bought up former partnership properties. The Gouldsboro Tannery became a disputed property after Leupp’s death. Leupp’s brother-in-law David W. Lee was also a partner in Leupp and Gould, and he took armed control of the tannery. He believed that Gould had cheated the Leupp and Lee families in the collapse of the business. Gould eventually took physical possession, but he was later forced to sell his shares in the company to Lee’s brother.

In 1859, Gould began speculative investing by buying stock in small railways. His father-in-law Daniel S. Miller introduced him to the railroad industry by suggesting that Gould help him save his investment in the Rutland and Washington Railroad in the Panic of 1857. Gould purchased stock for 10 cents on the dollar, which left him in control of the company. He engaged in more speculation on railroad stocks in New York City throughout the Civil War, and he was appointed manager of the Rensselaer and Saratoga Railroad in 1863. From then on he continued to buy railroads and amassed a great fortune. Gould had controlling interest in 15 percent of the country’s railway tracks by 1882. The railroads were making profits and set their own rates, and his wealth increased dramatically. He withdrew from management of the Union Pacific in 1883 amid political controversy over its debts to the federal government, but he realized a large profit for himself. He obtained a controlling interest in the Western Union telegraph company and in the elevated railways in New York City after 1881. In 1889, he organized the Terminal Railroad Assoc. of St. Louis which acquired a bottleneck in east–west railroad traffic at St. Louis, but the government brought an antitrust suit to eliminate the bottleneck control after Gould died. His fortune at the time of his death was conservatively estimated for tax purposes at $72 million (equivalent to $2.07 billion in 2022), which he willed in its entirety to his family.