Daniel Drew: Salted Cattle, the Erie War and a Forged 1910 Diary

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Daniel Drew was born in 1797 in Carmel, New York, lost his cattle-farmer father at 15, served without combat in the War of 1812 and worked for a traveling zoo before building a cattle-droving business. By 1820 he ran the Bull's Head Tavern in the Bowery, the hub for drovers and butchers. He fed his herds salt, then let them drink their fill before weighing, selling water by the pound, the practice behind the term watered stock. In 1834 he bought into a Hudson River steamboat, putting him up against Cornelius Vanderbilt. He founded a brokerage in 1844, joined the Erie Railroad board in 1857, and at times worked with Vanderbilt to rescue the Erie and the New York and Harlem.

In 1864 Drew shorted the New York and Harlem, and Vanderbilt cornered the shares, pushing the price from 90 to 285 in five months and costing Drew about $500,000. In the Erie War of 1866 to 1868, Drew, James Fisk and Jay Gould issued convertible bonds, turned them into fresh stock and kept selling it to Vanderbilt until he gave up control. By 1870 Fisk and Gould turned on Drew and took about $1.5 million from him. The Panic of 1873 finished the job: he filed for bankruptcy in 1876 and died in 1879 dependent on his son William. In 1910 Bouck White published The Book of Daniel Drew as Drew's lost diary, a forgery that biographer Clifford Browder has exposed.

• Rivals called Drew Uncle Daniel, and at his peak he held about $13 million.
• The rhyme about selling what isn't yours, long credited to Drew, has no proof he ever said it.
• James Fisk was shot dead in January 1872 by a rival over a mistress.
• Drew, a devout Methodist, funded Drew Theological Seminary, today Drew University.
• The forged diary inspired the 1937 film The Toast of New York starring Cary Grant.