In the fall of 1869 the Commodore, having secured everything in the railroad field he had sought except the Erie, put through his scheme for consolidation. The New York Central and Hudson River Railroad was incorporated. It included the old New York Central and also the Hudson River Railroad but not the Harlem. The capital of the consolidated company was placed at ninety million dollars, a figure of such magnitude in those days that the world was startled. The system embraced in all nearly 850 miles of railroad lines. A few years later the Harlem Railroad was leased to the property at a high valuation and a large dividend was guaranteed on the stock, the ownership of which was retained by the Vanderbilt family. The Vanderbilt system as it is now understood really began with these transactions. From this time on, its history has been similar in many respects to that of other large systems which were the outgrowth of merger or manipulation in these early days. During the remarkable period of commercial and industrial development in this country from 1870 onward, when thousands of miles of new lines were built every year, when the growth of population was beginning to make the States of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois centers of wealth and production, and when the wonderful Northwestern country embracing the States of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, was so rapidly opened up and brought nearer to the Eastern markets, the Vanderbilt railroad interests were not idle. The original genius, Cornelius Vanderbilt, was soon gathered to his fathers, but his son, William H. Vanderbilt, was in many ways a worthy successor. By 1885 the Vanderbilt lines had grown in extent and importance far beyond any point of which the elder Vanderbilt had ever dreamed. Long before this year the system included many smaller lines within the State of New York, and it had also acquired close control of the great Lake Shore and Michigan Southern system, with its splendid line from Buffalo to Chicago, consisting of more than 500 miles of railroad; the Michigan Central, owning lines from Detroit to Chicago, with many branches in Michigan and Illinois; the Canada Southern Railway, extending from Detroit to Toronto; and in addition to all these about 800 miles of other lines in the States of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.