Democratic Sentinel, Volume 1, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 September 1877 — Biography of a Great Stock Gambler. [ARTICLE]

Biography of a Great Stock Gambler.

Jay Gould is a native of Roxbury, Delaware county, N. Y. His father was the first male child bom in the town. Jay Gould’s mother died when he was about 10 years old, and his father has been dead about eight years. The farm on which his father lived was exchanged in 1856 for a house and lot in the village of Roxbury, with A. H. Burlians, now a resident of Cleveland, and was the farm on which his grandfather settled. It waß also the homestead of the Gould family. It can now be purchased for $3,000. Jay Gould did make a map of Delaware county, N. Y., as has been stated, but it was considered a first-class map, and was well received by all his subscribers. He also wrote the first history of Delaware county. In the year 1856 he made a map of Lake county, Ohio, and also a map of Oakland county, Mich. He was then in the map business, and made a success of it. Jay Gould’s mother was an active member of the Methodist Church, and one of his sisters married a Methodist minister. He has three sisters living who are active members of the Methodist Church. Jay Gould is a self-educated man, about 40 years old, a gentleman of sterling habits, and energetic. He commenced surveying in 1855, when about 17 years old, for Oliver Diston, of Ulster county, N. Y. He assisted him in the survey of the county, and did not receive over $lO per month for his services. His next work was to map his own county. He was engaged in a tannery with Col. Zadoc Pratt, one of the first tanners in his day in the United States. Zadoc Pratt was the founder of Prattsville, Greene couqty, N. Y., and was at one time the most extensive tanner in the world, and also a farmer and banker. He became attached to Jay Gould, and started him in the tanning business near a place now known as Goldsboro, Pa., a railroad station on the Delaware and Lackawanna railroad. The place was named in honor of Jay Gould, who was then a young man about 23 years old. Mr. Pratt and Mr. Gould settled up the business of Pratt & Gould amicably, by Mr. Gould assuming the obligations of the firm, all of which were closed up according to the arrangement without loss to Col. Pratt. —Cleveland Herald.