Biography
The youngest child of William Henry Vanderbilt and Maria Louisa Kissam. George II was named after his father's youngest brother, George Washington Vanderbilt II, the third son to survive to adulthood of the family founder, Cornelius Vanderbilt. (Uncle George II had died young at age 25 of tuberculosis contracted during his service in the Civil War.) Cornelius' tenth child, George I, was born in 1832 and died in 1836.
As the youngest in William's family, George II was said to be his father's favorite and his constant companion. Relatives described him as slender, dark-haired, and pale-complexioned. Shy and introverted, his interests ran to philosophy, books, and the collection of paintings in his father's large art gallery. In addition to frequent visits to Paris, France, where several Vanderbilts kept a home, George traveled extensively, becoming fluent in eight foreign languages.
His father owned elegant mansions in New York City and Newport and an 800-acre (3.2 km2) country estate on Long Island, died in 1885 of a stroke, leaving a fortune of approximately $200 million, the bulk of which was split between his two older sons, Cornelius Vanderbilt II and William K. Vanderbilt. George W. Vanderbilt II inherited $1 million from his grandfather and received another million on his 21st birthday from his father. Upon his father's death, he inherited $5 million more, as well as the income from a $5 million trust fund. He ran the family farm at New Dorp and Woodland Beach, now the neighborhood of Midland Beach on Staten Island, New York where he was born, then lived with his mother in Manhattan until his own townhouse at 9 West 53rd Street was completed in 1887. The Vanderbilt family business was operated by his older brothers. This left George to spend his time in intellectual pursuits.
Read more about this topic: George Washington Vanderbilt II
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