Cornelius Vanderbilt now begins gaining control of much of the shipping business along the Hudson River.

Vanderbilt's great-great-grandfather, Jan Aertson or Aertszoon, was a Dutch farmer from the village of De Bilt in Utrecht, Netherlands, who emigrated to New York as an indentured servant in 1650.

The Dutch van der ("of the"/"from") was eventually added to Aertson's village name to create "van der Bilt" ("from De Bilt"), which was eventually condensed to Vanderbilt.

Born in Staten Island, New York, Cornelius Vanderbilt had begun working on his father's ferry in New York Harbor as a boy, quitting school at the age of eleven.

At the age of sixteen, Vanderbilt decided to start his own ferry service.

According to one version of events, he borrowed $100 from his mother to purchase a periauger (a shallow draft, two-masted sailing vessel).

However, according to the version of the first published account of his life, published in the magazine Scientific American in 1853, the periauger belonged to his father and he received half the profit.

He began his business by ferrying freight and passengers between Staten Island and Manhattan.

Vanderbilt married his first cousin, Sophia Johnson (1795–1868), daughter of his aunt Elizabeth Hand Johnson, on December 19, 1813; the newlyweds moved into a boarding house on Broad Street in Manhattan.

He and his wife will eventually have thirteen children, one of whom will die in childhood.

In addition to running his ferry, Vanderbilt has bought his brother-in-law John De Forest's schooner Charlotte, and trades in food and merchandise, in partnership with his father and others.

On November 24, 1817, a ferry entrepreneur named Thomas Gibbons had asked Vanderbilt to captain his steamboat between New Jersey and New York.

Though Vanderbilt has kept his own businesses running, he has become Gibbons's business manager.

When Vanderbilt had entered his new position, Gibbons was fighting against a monopoly on steamboats in New York waters, granted by the New York State Legislature to the politically influential patrician, Robert Livingston, and steamboat designer Robert Fulton.

Though both Livingston and Fulton had died by the time Vanderbilt went to work for Gibbons, the monopoly has continued in the hands of Livingston's heirs, who had granted a license to Aaron Ogden to run a ferry between New York and New Jersey.

Gibbons had launched his steamboat venture because of a personal dispute with Ogden, whom he hoped to bankrupt.

To accomplish this, he has undercut prices, and has also brought a landmark legal case—Gibbons v. Ogden—to the United States Supreme Court to overturn the monopoly.

Working for Gibbons, Vanderbilt has learned to operate a large and complicated business.

He has moved to New Brunswick, New Jersey, a stop on Gibbons's line between New York and Philadelphia, where Sophia operates a very profitable inn, using the proceeds to feed, clothe, and educate the children.

Vanderbilt has also proved a quick study in legal matters, representing Gibbons in meetings with lawyers.

He has also gone to Washington, D.C., to hire Daniel Webster to argue the case before the Supreme Court.

Vanderbilt has appealed his own case against the monopoly to the Supreme Court, which is next on the docket after Gibbons v. Ogden.

The Court never hears Vanderbilt's case, because on March 2, 1824, it rules in favor of Gibbon's, saying that states have no power to interfere with interstate commerce.

The case is still considered a landmark ruling, and is considered the basis for much of the prosperity the United States will later enjoy.