Before the reorganization the bonds outstanding had amounted to $18,006,000, the stock to $11,000,000, and the unsecured indebtedness to $8,504,000. After reorganization the totals were: indebtedness, $17,953,000, and stock, $19,911,000 (of which $8,911,000 preferred); or a capitalization of $67,728 per mile. The road was sold in 1862, and the Erie Railway took the place of the original New York & Erie Railroad Company. With 1864 began the career of the Erie as a speculative Wall Street stock. Its large capitalization and the painful slowness with which its earnings grew kept the quotations of its shares normally at a low figure and invited speculation; while the location of its lines tempted more serious efforts to obtain control. Up to 1867 Daniel Drew was in power, while Commodore Vanderbilt spent his best efforts to drive him out; after that date Jay Gould and Jim Fisk became more and more prominent, and manipulated the Erie securities with enthusiastic regard to profits which they might derive both from the Erie Company itself and from operators who wished to speculate in its stock. In the course of the abundant litigation to which Gould’s methods gave rise, various receivers were appointed; but the orders of appointment were subsequently vacated, and the receiverships were nominal only. The details of the Wall Street struggles have little interest for us here.[91] But the result is of importance. In the eight years from 1864 to 1872, when Gould was turned out of Erie by General Sickles and his English backers, the bonded indebtedness of the company increased from $17,822,900 to $26,395,000, and the common stock from $24,228,800 to $78,000,000; in the one case a growth of 48 per cent and in the other of 221 per cent, at a time when the mileage increased 53 per cent and the net earnings but 22 per cent.[92] No more disgraceful record exists for any American railroad. The stock was not issued for the sake of improving the road, and it was subsequently shown that the road was not improved; but it was thrown upon the market at critical times in support of bear operations by the Erie managers, while portions of it, on at least one occasion, were bought back with the funds of the company to aid speculation for a rise. The result was to ruin the credit of the Erie, and to make it the favorite tool of cliques of gamblers. The increase in bonds occasioned an unmistakable increase in fixed charges, which rose from 20 per cent of gross earnings in 1864 to 25 per cent in 1871, 21 per cent in 1872, and 30 per cent in 1873, while the purchase of worthless bonds of subsidiary roads, such as the Boston, Hartford & Erie, lessened the assets without disclosing the real position to the casual observer.