Henry S. Ives (1859–1894) was an American financier, speculator and stock manipulator, popularly nicknamed by the contemporary press as "The Napoleon of Finance." Ives is best remembered as the principal of a brief but spectacular Wall Street misappropriation of funds scandal in the 1880s.

Biography

Early years

Ives was born in 1859 in

Litchfield, Connecticut Litchfield is a town in and former county seat of Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 8,192 at the 2020 census. The boroughs of Bantam and Litchfield are located within the town. There are also three unincorporat ...

, the youngest of three children of a customs house broker. He arrived penniless in New York City as a young man. "Baby-faced, slight of build, and short", he rose from a salary of $10 per week, to controlling millions of dollars of property, within five years.

Business career

With partners George H. Stayner and Thomas C. Doremus, he founded the firm of Henry S. Ives and Company in 1886, while still in his 20s. The firm immediately began acquiring the stocks of railroad companies, inflating their stock prices, which provided additional borrowing leverage for more acquisitions, then raiding their corporate treasuries once they'd assumed control. He controlled the

Mineral Range Railroad The Mineral Range Railroad (reporting mark MRA) is a shortline railroad in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It began operations in 2002. In 2012, it acquired an ex- Lake Superior and Ishpeming line between Humboldt Mill and Ishpeming. The Humbol ...

in Michigan, the Terre Haute and Indianapolis, and his largest conquest was the Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton Railway in 1886. In May 1887 the expulsion and later unexplained re-admission of Doremus as a member of the

New York Stock Exchange The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed c ...

caused a disruption in the NYSE's Board of Governors, including resignations within the governing committee.

Financial scandal

When Ives attempted a takeover of the venerable but troubled

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was the first common carrier railroad and the oldest railroad in the United States, with its first section opening in 1830. Merchants from Baltimore, which had benefited to some extent from the construction of ...

he provoked a legal and financial battle with its chief, Robert Garrett (son and successor of

John W. Garrett John Work Garrett (July 31, 1820 – September 26, 1884), was an American merchant turned banker who became president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) in 1858 and led the railroad for nearly three decades. The B&O became one of the most ...

). This triggered a collapse of the entire scheme on August 11, 1887. That announcement, at ten minutes before the close, caused unrestrained cheering on the NYSE trading floor. Ives's total liabilities amounted to $25,000,000. Creditors eventually settled for five cents on the dollar. Ives and Stayner were tried for grand larceny in September 1889 but acquitted on a hung jury.Moody's Magazine, December 1909, page 454

Death and legacy

Ives died of tuberculosis in

Asheville, North Carolina Asheville ( ) is a city in, and the county seat of, Buncombe County, North Carolina. Located at the confluence of the French Broad and Swannanoa rivers, it is the largest city in Western North Carolina, and the state's 11th-most populous cit ...

, on April 17, 1894, five years after the trial.

Footnotes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ives, Henry S. 1859 births 1894 deaths People from Litchfield, Connecticut 19th-century American businesspeople American white-collar criminals American businesspeople convicted of crimes