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James Fisk Jr. (April 1, 1835 – January 7, 1872), known variously as "Big Jim", "Diamond Jim", and "Jubilee Jim" – was an American
stockbroker A stockbroker is a regulated broker, broker-dealer, or registered investment adviser (in the United States) who may provide financial advisory and investment management services and execute transactions such as the purchase or sale of stock ...
and corporate executive who has been referred to as one of the " robber barons" of the
Gilded Age In United States history, the Gilded Age was an era extending roughly from 1877 to 1900, which was sandwiched between the Reconstruction era and the Progressive Era. It was a time of rapid economic growth, especially in the Northern and Wes ...
. Though Fisk was admired by the
working class The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colou ...
of New York and the
Erie Railroad The Erie Railroad was a railroad that operated in the northeastern United States, originally connecting New York City — more specifically Jersey City, New Jersey, where Erie's Pavonia Terminal, long demolished, used to stand — with Lake ...
, he achieved much ill-fame for his role in Black Friday in 1869, where he and his partner Jay Gould befriended the unsuspecting President
Ulysses S. Grant Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant ; April 27, 1822July 23, 1885) was an American military officer and politician who served as the 18th president of the United States from 1869 to 1877. As Commanding General, he led the Union A ...
in an attempt to use the President's good name in a scheme to corner the gold market in New York City. Several years later Fisk was murdered by a disgruntled business associate.


Early life and career

Fisk was born in the hamlet of
Pownal, Vermont Pownal is a town in Bennington County, Vermont, United States. As of the 2020 census, the town population was 3,258. The town of Pownal includes the villages of Pownal, North Pownal, and Pownal Center. History During the Woodland period, th ...
, in Bennington County in 1835. After a brief period in school, he ran away in 1850 and joined Van Amberg's Mammoth Circus & Menagerie. Later, he became a hotel waiter, and finally adopted the business of his father, a
peddler A peddler, in British English pedlar, also known as a chapman, packman, cheapjack, hawker, higler, huckster, (coster)monger, colporteur or solicitor, is a door-to-door and/or travelling vendor of goods. In England, the term was mostly used f ...
. He applied what he learned in the circus to his peddling and grew his father's business. He then became a salesman for
Jordan Marsh Jordan Marsh (officially Jordan Marsh & Company) was an American department store chain that was headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, and operated throughout New England. It was founded by Eben Dyer Jordan and Benjamin L. Marsh in 1841. The ...
, a
Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
dry goods firm. A failure as a salesman, he was sent to Washington, D.C., in 1861 to sell textiles to the government. By his shrewd dealing in army contracts during the
Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government polici ...
, and, by some accounts, cotton smuggling across enemy lines—in which he enlisted the help of his father—he accumulated considerable wealth, which he soon lost in
speculation In finance, speculation is the purchase of an asset (a commodity, goods, or real estate) with the hope that it will become more valuable shortly. (It can also refer to short sales in which the speculator hopes for a decline in value.) Many ...
. At the end of the war, he made a fortune by learning of the end of the
Siege of Petersburg The Richmond–Petersburg campaign was a series of battles around Petersburg, Virginia, fought from June 9, 1864, to March 25, 1865, during the American Civil War. Although it is more popularly known as the Siege of Petersburg, it was not a cla ...
which guaranteed Confederate defeat and sending an agent on a fast boat to London to short as many Confederate bonds as possible before the news arrived.


Business career

In 1864 Fisk became a stockbroker in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, and was employed by
Daniel Drew Daniel Drew (July 29, 1797 – September 18, 1879) was an American businessman, steamship and railroad developer, and financier. Summarizing his life, Henry Clews wrote: "Of all the great operators of Wall Street ... Daniel Drew furnishes t ...
as a buyer. He aided Drew in the
Erie War The Erie War was a 19th-century conflict between American financiers for control of the Erie Railway Company, which owned and operated the Erie Railroad. Built with public funds raised by taxation and on land donated by public officials and priva ...
against
Cornelius Vanderbilt Cornelius Vanderbilt (May 27, 1794 – January 4, 1877), nicknamed "the Commodore", was an American business magnate who built his wealth in railroads and shipping. After working with his father's business, Vanderbilt worked his way into lead ...
for control of the
Erie Railroad The Erie Railroad was a railroad that operated in the northeastern United States, originally connecting New York City — more specifically Jersey City, New Jersey, where Erie's Pavonia Terminal, long demolished, used to stand — with Lake ...
. This resulted in Fisk and Jay Gould becoming members of the Erie directorate, and subsequently, a well-planned raid netted Fisk and Gould control of the railroad. The association with Gould continued until Fisk's death. Fisk and Gould carried financial buccaneering to extremes: their program included an open alliance with New York politician
Boss Tweed William Magear Tweed (April 3, 1823 – April 12, 1878), often erroneously referred to as William "Marcy" Tweed (see below), and widely known as "Boss" Tweed, was an American politician most notable for being the political boss of Tammany ...
, the wholesale bribery of legislatures, and the buying of judges. Their attempt to corner the gold market culminated in the fateful Black Friday of September 24, 1869. Though many investors were ruined, Fisk and Gould escaped significant financial harm.


Personal life

Fisk married Lucy Moore in 1854, when he was 19 and she was 15. Lucy was an orphan, raised by an uncle from
Springfield, Massachusetts Springfield is a city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, United States, and the seat of Hampden County. Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River near its confluence with three rivers: the western Westfield River, th ...
. She tolerated Fisk's many extramarital affairs, perhaps because she was happy living with her own love, Fanny Harrod, in Boston. Regardless, they remained close, with Fisk visiting her every few weeks and spending summers and vacations with her every chance he could. In New York, Fisk had a relationship with
Josie Mansfield Helen Josephine Mansfield (December 15, 1847 – October 27, 1931) – known as "Josie" – was an American woman who became famous when one of her two wealthy lovers murdered the other. Early life Mansfield was a descendant of many colonial fa ...
. Mansfield was considered a voluptuous beauty by Victorian standards of female desirability. Fisk housed Mansfield in an apartment a few doors down from the Erie Railroad headquarters on West 23rd Street and had a covered passage built linking the back doors of the headquarters and her apartment building. Fisk's relationship with Mansfield scandalized New York society. Mansfield eventually fell in love with Fisk's business associate
Edward Stiles Stokes Edward Stiles Stokes (April 27, 1841 -– November 2, 1901) was the owner of a New York oil refinery. In 1872, he shot and killed his business partner and love rival James Fisk. Stokes was tried three times and found guilty of manslaughter in the ...
(1840–1901), a man noted for his good looks. Stokes left his wife and family, and Mansfield left Fisk.


Fisk's murder and aftermath

In a bid for money, Mansfield and Stokes tried to extort Fisk by threatening the publication of letters written by Fisk to Mansfield that allegedly proved Fisk's legal wrongdoings. A legal and public relations battle followed, but Fisk refused to pay Mansfield anything. Increasingly frustrated and flirting with bankruptcy, Stokes confronted Fisk in New York City on January 6, 1872, in the
Grand Central Hotel The Grand Central Hotel, later renamed the Broadway Central Hotel, was a hotel at 673 Broadway, New York City, that was famous as the site of the murder of financier James Fisk in 1872 by Edward S. Stokes. The hotel collapsed on August 3, ...
and shot him twice, in the arm and abdomen. A relatively young man of 36, Fisk died of the abdominal wound the next morning after giving a dying declaration identifying Stokes as the killer. Stokes pleaded self-defense, using a wildly incongruent set of
mitigating circumstance In law, attendant circumstances (sometimes external circumstances) are the facts surrounding an event. In criminal law in the United States, the definition of a given offense generally includes up to three kinds of "elements": the , or guilty c ...
s. He claimed to have been suffering from emotional turmoil at the time he committed the act. Fisk's death was blamed on medical malpractice by those who treated his mortal wound. Stokes was subsequently tried three times for the Fisk murder. The first trial where he was charged with first degree murder ended in a
hung jury A hung jury, also called a deadlocked jury, is a judicial jury that cannot agree upon a verdict after extended deliberation and is unable to reach the required unanimity or supermajority. Hung jury usually results in the case being tried again. T ...
, and rumors of jury members bribed. The second trial found him guilty of first degree murder and he was sentenced to death, a verdict overturned by appeal. The third trial concluded with a conviction for manslaughter, and Stokes served four years of a six-year prison sentence in Sing Sing Penitentiary. Fisk's body was laid out for public view in the Grand Opera House, which he had owned. Some twenty thousand people came to pay their respects, with five times as many more individuals waiting in the streets to gain entrance. The notorious letters Fisk had written to Mansfield, numbering thirty-nine, were published in the ''
New York Herald The ''New York Herald'' was a large-distribution newspaper based in New York City that existed between 1835 and 1924. At that point it was acquired by its smaller rival the '' New-York Tribune'' to form the '' New York Herald Tribune''. Hi ...
'' one week after his death. For those who had hoped to read revelations detailing Fisk's corrupt business practices, the letters were a sorry disappointment, being no more than the commonplace communications between a man and the woman he loved. Fisk is buried in the Prospect Hill Cemetery in
Brattleboro, Vermont Brattleboro (), originally Brattleborough, is a town in Windham County, Vermont, United States. The most populous municipality abutting Vermont's eastern border with New Hampshire, which is the Connecticut River, Brattleboro is located about ...
. Fisk was vilified by high society for his amoral and eccentric ways and by many pundits of the day for his business dealings; but he was loved and mourned by the workingmen of New York and the Erie Railroad. He was known as "Colonel" for being the nominal commander of the 9th New York National Guard Infantry Regiment, although his only experience of military action with this unit was an inglorious role in the Orange Riot of July 12, 1871.


In popular culture

Fisk's life was fictionalized in the
biopic A biographical film or biopic () is a film that dramatizes the life of a non-fictional or historically-based person or people. Such films show the life of a historical person and the central character's real name is used. They differ from docudr ...
'' The Toast of New York'' (1937), starring Edward Arnold as Fisk. He may be the inspiration for the character "Big Jim" in
Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...
's song " Lily, Rosemary, and The Jack of Hearts". In
Phoebe Atwood Taylor Phoebe Atwood Taylor (Boston 18 May 1909–Boston 9 January 1976) was an American writer of mystery novels. She graduated from Barnard College in 1930 and married surgeon Grantley Walder Taylor in December 1951. Phoebe Atwood Taylor wrote mystery ...
's ''
Figure Away ''Figure Away'', first published in 1937, is a detective story by Phoebe Atwood Taylor which features her series detective Asey Mayo, the "Codfish Sherlock". This novel is a mystery of the type known as a whodunnit. In 1939, the novel was seria ...
'', a woman says that "Jim Fisk was shot with revolverjust like" the one that she owns. The Colt House Revolver is known among collectors as the Jim Fisk model or the Jim Fisk pistol, as it was used by Edward Stiles Stokes (Ned Stokes) in his murder. The circumstances surrounding his murder were dramatized in the CBS radio program '' Crime Classics'' on June 29, 1953, in the episode entitled "The Checkered Life and Sudden Death of Colonel James Fisk".


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External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Fisk, James 1835 births 1872 deaths 19th-century American railroad executives American murder victims American stockbrokers Deaths by firearm in Manhattan People from Pownal, Vermont People murdered in New York City Male murder victims People of New York (state) in the American Civil War Erie Railroad 1872 murders in the United States american militia officers