LeGrand Lockwood (1820 – February 24, 1872), was a businessman and financier in New York City in the late 19th century. He built the

Lockwood–Mathews Mansion The Lockwood–Mathews Mansion is a Second Empire style country house in Norwalk, Connecticut. Now a museum, it was built in 1864-68 for railroad and banking magnate LeGrand Lockwood. The 62-room mansion was listed on the National Register ...

Norwalk, Connecticut , image_map = Fairfield County Connecticut incorporated and unincorporated areas Norwalk highlighted.svg , mapsize = 230px , map_caption = Location in Fairfield County and Connecticut , coordinates ...

Biography

Lockwood was born in Norwalk. He began his career on Wall Street as a clerk for Shipman, Coming & Co. and later worked for T. Ketchum & Co. In 1843 he became junior partner at Genin & LockwoodObituary, ''New York Times'', February 25, 1872 before founding Lockwood & Company, one of Wall Street's leading brokerage houses, and was a longtime rival of

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 ...

.Ackerman, Kenneth D.
''The Gold Ring: Jim Fisk, Jay Gould, and Black Friday, 1869''
Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2005, via Google Books, retrieved December 22, 2008 Lockwood was a director of the New York Central Railroad and treasurer of the New York Stock Exchange. In the summer of 1869,

Jay Gould Jason Gould (; May 27, 1836 – December 2, 1892) was an American 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 ...

, attempting to create a railroad empire with a connection from New York City to the Pacific coast, negotiated with Lockwood, the treasurer and, according to author Kenneth D. Ackerman, the "dominant figure" of the

Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway The Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway, established in 1833 and sometimes referred to as the Lake Shore, was a major part of the New York Central Railroad's Water Level Route from Buffalo, New York, to Chicago, Illinois, primarily along the ...

. "After hours of haggling over a dinner of oysters, wine and steak at Delmonico's late one August night", Ackerman wrote, Gould came to an agreement with Lockwood that Gould's railroad would build a line into New York City for the narrow-gauge cars used by Lockwood's company in return for westward connections. Lockwood agreed to the deal despite opposition from Vanderbilt, who was simultaneously trying to gain control of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern by electing proxies to the board of directors. Learning of the deal, Vanderbilt launched a raid on Lakeshore's stock, which sunk the price from $120 a share to $95 and put Lockwood in danger of

personal bankruptcy Personal bankruptcy law allows, in certain jurisdictions, an individual to be declared bankrupt. Virtually every country with a modern legal system features some form of debt relief for individuals. Personal bankruptcy is distinguished from corpora ...

. Lockwood began making plans to scuttle the deal with Gould. He managed to sell his shares in Lakeshore to Vanderbilt for the bargain price of $10 million, turning over control of the company to him. NorwalkCTLockwoodMansionSoSide09032007

In 1867, Lockwood commissioned

Albert Bierstadt Albert Bierstadt (January 7, 1830 – February 18, 1902) was a German-American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. He joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion to paint the scenes. He was not ...

's ''The Domes of the Yosemite'', the artist's second great, monumental Yosemite work, for $25,000. It was the artist's largest canvas and sparked a critical debate when it first appeared at the Tenth Street Studio Building in New York. Lockwood hung the painting in the octagonal rotunda of his Norwalk, Connecticut, mansion. After Lockwood's death in 1872, the painting sold at auction for $5,100. Lockwood also bought works by Frederic Church, William Bradford, and Asher B. Durand.Charles, Eleanor
"The Guide"
"A Tycoon's Taste", notice of an art exhibit at the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum, ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', February 24, 1991, retrieved December 22, 20087 Lockwood died in his

Fifth Avenue Fifth Avenue is a major and prominent thoroughfare in the borough of Manhattan in New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 populatio ...

home in New York City on February 24, 1872. At his death he was a director of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company and the principal owner of the

Danbury and Norwalk Railroad The Danbury and Norwalk Railroad, chartered in 1835 as the Fairfield County Railroad, was an independent American railroad that operated between the cities of Danbury and Norwalk, Connecticut from 1852 until its absorption by the Housatonic Railr ...

Notes and references

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lockwood, LeGrand 1820 births 1872 deaths People from Norwalk, Connecticut History of Norwalk, Connecticut 19th-century American businesspeople