George Jay Gould I (1864-1923)

George Jay Gould I (February 6, 1864 – May 16, 1923) was a financier and the son of Jay Gould. He was himself a railroad executive, leading both the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad (DRGW) and the Western Pacific Railroad (WP).

Birth, marriage and children
George was the son of Jay Gould (1836–1892) and Helen Day Miller (1838–1889). He married Edith M. Kingdon (1864–1921), a stage actress, and had the following children:


 * Kingdon Gould, Sr. (1887–1945) who married Annunziata Camilla Maria Lucci (1890–1961)
 * Jay Gould II (1888–1935) who was a tennis player and who married Anne Douglass Graham
 * Marjorie Gould (1891–1955) who married Anthony Joseph Drexel II
 * Helen Vivien Gould (1893–1931) who married John Graham Hope DeLaPoer Horsley Beresford (1866–1945)
 * George Jay Gould II (1896-?) who married Laura Carter
 * Edith Catherine Gould (1901–1937) who married Carroll Livingston Wainwright I (1899–1967) and after a divorce married Sir Hector Murray MacNeal
 * Gloria Gould (1906–1943) who married Henry A. Bishop II, and after a divorce married Walter McFarlane Barker

George Gould also had a mistress, Guinevere Jeanne Sinclair, and had the following children with her:
 * Jane Sinclair Gould
 * George Sinclair Gould
 * Guinevere Gould

After the death of Edith Kingdon Gould in November 1921, George Gould married Guinevere Jeanne Sinclair in May 1922. Their children were then given the Gould name. Time magazine wrote on March 23, 1925: "Of the seven older children by his first marriage — Kingdon, Jay, George Jay Jr., Marjorie, Vivien, Edith, Gloria — three eloped, one married an English nobleman, and one the daughter of a Hawaiian princess."

Death and burial
He died of pneumonia on May 16, 1923, on the French Riviera after contracting a fever in Egypt after visiting the tomb of Tutankhamen. He was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in New York. His estate was valued at $15,054,627 but after debts were paid it was worth $5,175,590 in 1933 dollars.

Railroad management
Upon his father's death George inherited the Gould fortune and his father's railroad holdings, including the DRGW and the Missouri Pacific Railroad. While in charge of the DRGW at the turn of the 20th century, he sent surveyors and engineers through California's Feather River canyon to stake out a route for the railroad to reach San Francisco, California. Through legal wranglings led by E. H. Harriman, who at the time led both the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific Railroads, Gould was forced to set up third-party companies to manage the surveying and construction to disguise his role. The route that Gould's engineers built became the WP mainline.

In later years, the DRGW and WP would work together on trains that were passed off to each other in Salt Lake City, Utah, including the prestigious passenger train, the California Zephyr.

Legacy
Gould's estate in Lakewood Township, New Jersey is now the site of Georgian Court University.

Timeline

 * 1864 Birth of George Jay Gould on February 6
 * [[Media:1880 census Gould.gif|1880 US Census]] with George Jay Gould in Greenburgh, New York
 * 1884 (circa) marriage to Edith M. Kingdon
 * [[Media:1900 census Gould Kingdon.gif|1900 US Census with George Jay Gould]] in Lakewood, New Jersey
 * 1921 Death of Edith M. Kingdon, his wife
 * 1923 Death of George Jay Gould, in the French Riviera on May 16