LeGrand Lockwood was a businessman and financier in New York City in the late 19h century. He built the Lockwood-Mathews mansion in Norwalk, Connecticut

Norwalk, Connecticut

Norwalk is a city in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the population of the city is 85,603, making Norwalk sixth in population in Connecticut, and third in Fairfield County...

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Lockwood was born in Norwalk. He began his career on Wall Street as a clerk for Shipman, Coming & Co. and later worked for T. Ketchum & Co. In 1843 he became junior partner at Genin & Lockwood before founding Lockwood & Company, one of Wall Street's leading brokerage houses, and was a longtime ally of Cornelius Vanderbilt

Cornelius Vanderbilt

Cornelius Vanderbilt , also known by the sobriquet Commodore, was an American entrepreneur who built his wealth in shipping and railroads. He was also the patriarch of the Vanderbilt family and one of the richest Americans in history...

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Lockwood was a director of the New York Central Railroad and treasurer of the New York Stock Exchange.

In the summer of 1869, Jay Gould

Jay Gould

Jason "Jay" Gould was a leading American railroad developer and speculator. He has long been vilified as an archetypal robber baron, whose successes made him the ninth richest American in history. Condé Nast Portfolio ranked Gould as the 8th worst American CEO of all time...

, attempting to create a railroad empire with a connection from New York City to the Pacific coast, negotiated with Lockwood, the treasurer and, according to author Kenneth D. Ackerman, the "dominant figure" of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway

Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway

The Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway, sometimes referred to as the Lake Shore, was a major part of the New York Central Railroad's Water Level Route from Buffalo, NY to Chicago, primarily along the south shore of Lake Erie and across northern Indiana...

. "After hours of haggling over a dinner of oysters, wine and steak at Delmonico's late one August night", Ackerman wrote, Gould came to an agreement with Lockwood that Gould's railroad would build a line into New York City for the narrow-gauge cars used by Lockwood's company in return for westward connections. Lockwood agreed to the deal despite opposition from Vanderbilt, who was simultaneously trying to gain control of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern by electing proxies to the board of directors.

Learning of the deal, Vanderbilt launched a raid on Lakeshore's stock, which sunk the price from $120 a share to $95 and put Lockwood in danger of personal bankruptcy

Personal bankruptcy

Personal bankruptcy is a procedure which, in certain jurisdictions, allows an individual to declare bankruptcy. In other jurisdictions, bankruptcies are reserved for corporations.-Canada:...

. Lockwood began making plans to scuttle the deal with Fiske. He managed to sell his shares in Lakeshore to Vanderbilt for the bargain price o $10 million, turning over control of the company to him.

In 1867, Lockwood commissioned Albert Bierstadt

Albert Bierstadt

Albert Bierstadt was a German-American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. In obtaining the subject matter for these works, Bierstadt joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion...

's The Domes of the Yosemite, the artist's second great, monumental Yosemite work, for $25,000. It was the artist's largest canvas and sparked a critical debate when it first appeared at the Tenth Street Studio Building in New York. Lockwood hung the painting in the octagonal rotunda of his Norwalk, Connecticut, mansion. After Lockwood's death in 1872, the painting sold at auction for $5,100.Lockwood also bought works by Frederic Church, William Bradford

William Bradford (painter)

William Bradford was an American romanticist painter, photographer and explorer, originally from Fairhaven, Massachusetts, near New Bedford....

, and Asher B. Durand.

Lockwood died in his Fifth-Avenue home in New York City on February 24, 1872. At his death he was a director of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company and the principal owner of the Danbury and Norwalk Railroad

Danbury and Norwalk Railroad

The Danbury and Norwalk Railroad was an independent American railroad that operated between its namesake cities in Connecticut from 1852 until its absorption by the Housatonic Railroad in 1887...

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