Fortunately the record of Erie, notwithstanding Mr. Gould’s silence, can be told from authoritative testimony. In his famous “Chapter of Erie,” published in the North American Review, in 1869, Charles Francis Adams gives a thrilling account of Erie from the time Daniel Drew engaged in his famous war with Commodore Vanderbilt, to the time when that unfortunate road was in complete control of Jay Gould and James Fisk, Jr. Mr. Adams’ history stopped short in the middle of the story, but the record of Erie, from 1869 till Mr. Gould was driven from power in 1872, is given in the report of the legislative inquiry in 1873, and of the Hepburn investigation of 1879. It is a curious fact that years after writing this “chapter” Mr. Adams, having become president of the Union Pacific, sat in the same Board of Directors with Gould, but only for a comparatively brief period, and Mr. Adams never repudiated or recalled his early history of Gould in Erie. It is a striking illustration, however, of the power of millions that Gould should live to sit in the same board with the representative of the aristocratic Adams family, which furnished two Presidents to the United States; that after an effort to involve the administration of President Grant in the disgrace of Black Friday, he should, in after years, be joined with him in business enterprises; that after having been publicly branded as an unscrupulous gambler in a Congressional report written by James A. Garfield, he should be sought for to render aid to secure Garfield’s election as president, and that, though not seeking to join the social circles in which the Astors are leaders, he was able to induce John Jacob Astor to sit with him in the Western Union Board of Directors. Twenty years ago, after Mr. Adams wrote his “Chapter of Erie,” he was himself president of the Union Pacific, and it must have given Mr. Gould the keenest satisfaction to have been the occasion of his retirement from that position. The railway was in a bad way financially--had a big floating debt--and Mr. Gould and his friends stepped in, gained control of the property the second time, retired Mr. Adams from the presidency and secured an adjustment of the floating debt. It was suggested to Mr. Gould at this time that he might write a “Chapter of Union Pacific” covering the history of the Adams administration. But whatever there may have been lacking in administrative vigor in Mr. Adams’ presidency, he retired without any blot on the family escutcheon. When Gould entered Wall street Erie was one of the most active stocks on the list of the Stock Exchange. It was natural that he should drift into its speculation, and his connection with the Cleveland and Pittsburg led him naturally into Erie. His old acquaintances were surprised to hear one day that he had become a director and a controlling spirit of this great road. This was in 1867.