Daniel Drew is popularly credited with introducing what would be called "watered stock" to the New York financial district, to describe company shares that were issued by false means such as counterfeit certificates or shares issued that were not authorized, resulting in a dilution of ownership; the term supposedly came from his time in the cattle business, when he would have his cattle drink water before selling them, to increase their weight temporarily.

The tactic will be used in the Erie War of 1866-1868 to block Vanderbilt from getting ownership of Erie.

In 1857, Drew had become a member of the board of directors of the Erie Railway and had used his position to manipulate the firm's stock price.

In 1864, Drew had once again struggled with Vanderbilt, speculating on the stock of the New York and Harlem Railroad.

Drew had been selling the stock short, but Vanderbilt and his associates had bought every share he sold, ultimately causing the stock price to rise from 90 to 285 in five months.

Drew loses $500,000.

Born in Carmel, New York, Drew had been poorly educated.

His father had died when Daniel was fifteen years old.

Drew had enlisted and drilled, but because he enlisted too late, never fought in the War of 1812.

After the war, he had started a successful cattle-driving business, marrying married Roxanna Mead in 1823.

In 1834, he had entered the steamship business, competing unsuccessfully with Cornelius Vanderbilt but running numerous profitable lines outside of New York.

He had founded the brokerage firm of Drew, Robinson & Company in 1844, which dissolved a decade later with the deaths of his partners, after which he had continued to work in the brokerage business as an independent operator.

Jay Gould's father-in-law is credited with introducing the younger man to the railroad industry, when he suggested that Gould help him save his investment in the Rutland and Washington Railroad.

Gould had quickly acquired a majority of the company's bonds at 10 cents on the dollar.

Jason Gould was born in Roxbury, New York, the son of Mary More (1798–1841) and John Burr Gould (1792–1866).

His father was of British ancestry and his mother was of Scottish ancestry.

Gould's maternal grandfather Alexander T. More was a businessman, and his great-grandfather John More was a Scottish immigrant who founded the town of Moresville, New York.

Known as Jay, young Gould had studied at local schools and the Hobart Academy, where his principal was credited as getting him a job working as a bookkeeper for a blacksmith.

A year later, the blacksmith had offered him half interest in the blacksmith shop, which he had sold to his father during the early part of 1854.

Gould had devoted himself to private study, emphasizing surveying and mathematics.

In 1854, Gould had surveyed and created maps of the Ulster County, New York area.

In 1856, he had published History of Delaware County, and Border Wars of New York, which he had spent several years writing.

In 1856, Gould had entered a partnership with Zadock Pratt to create a tanning business in Pennsylvania in what would become Gouldsboro.

Eventually, he had bought out Pratt, who retired.

In 1856, Gould had entered another partnership with Charles Mortimer Leupp, a son-in-law of Gideon Lee, and one of the leading leather merchants in the United States at the time.

Leupp and Gould had been a successful partnership until the Panic of 1857.

Leupp had lost all his money, while Gould had taken advantage of the opportunity of the depreciation of property value and bought up former partnership properties for himself.

After the death of Charles Leupp, the Gouldsboro Tannery became a disputed property.

Charles Leupp's brother-in-law, David W. Lee, who was also a partner in Leupp and Gould, took armed control of the tannery, believing that Gould had cheated the Leupp and Lee families in the collapse of the business.

Eventually, Gould took physical possession, but was later forced to sell his share of the company to Lee's brother.

In 1863, he had married Helen Day Miller, with whom he will have six children.

Jim Fisk has aided Daniel Drew, who had become treasurer of the Erie Railway, in the struggle against Cornelius Vanderbilt for control of the railroad from 1866 to 1868.

To get revenge, Vanderbilt had tried to corner Erie stock, which led to the so-called Erie War, bringing him into direct conflict with Jay Gould and Fisk, who had just joined Drew on the Erie board.

New York state law restricts the number of shares a company can issue

However, Fisk and Gould have become involved with Tammany Hall, the New York City political ring, and Boss Tweed had arranged, through bribes, for legislation that had legitimized fake Erie stock certificates that Gould and Fisk had issued in large quantities

Vanderbilt, unaware of the increase in outstanding shares, had kept buying the “watered” Erie stock and sustained heavy losses

Eventually conceding control of the railroad to the trio, Vanderbilt had lost more than seven million dollars in his failed attempt, although Gould will later return most of the money after Vanderbilt uses the leverage of a lawsuit to get his losses back

Vanderbilt and Gould become public enemies

Gould will never get the better of Vanderbilt in any other important business matter, but he will often embarrass Vanderbilt, who uncharacteristically lashes out at Gould in public

By contrast, Vanderbilt will befriend his other foes after their fights ended, including Drew

Boss Tweed, in return for his role, receives a large block of stock and is made a director of the company.

James Fisk was born in the hamlet of Pownal, Vermont, in the township of Bennington on April Fool's Day.

After a brief period in school, he had run away in 1850 and joined Van Amberg's Mammoth Circus & Menagerie.

Later, he became a hotel waiter, and finally adopted the business of his father, a peddler.

He applied what he learned in the circus to his peddling and grew his father's business.

He then became a salesman for Jordan Marsh, a Boston dry goods firm.

A failure as a salesman, he had been sent to Washington, D.C., in 1861 to sell textiles to the government.

By his shrewd dealing in army contracts during the Civil War, and, by some accounts, cotton smuggling across enemy lines—in which he had enlisted the help of his father—he had accumulated considerable wealth, which he soon lost in speculation.

In 1864, Fisk had become a stockbroker in New York, and was employed by Daniel Drew as a buyer.

Jim Fisk and Jay Gould carry financial buccaneering to extremes: their program includes an open alliance with Boss Tweed, the wholesale bribery of legislatures, and the buying of judges.

In August 1869, Gould and Fisk had begun to buy gold in an attempt to corner the market, hoping that the increase in the price of gold would increase the price of wheat such that western farmers would sell, causing a great amount of shipping of bread stuffs eastward, increasing freight business for the Erie railroad.

During this time, Gould uses contacts with President Ulysses S. Grant's brother-in-law, Abel Corbin, to try to influence the president and his Secretary General Horace Porter.

These speculations in gold culminate in the panic of Black Friday, on September 24, 1869, when the US Treasury, in response, releases its gold on the US market.

The sudden glut causes the price of gold to plummet—the premium over face value on a gold Double Eagle falls from 62% to 35%—and collapses the entire stock market.

The gold corner establishes Gould's reputation in the press as an all-powerful figure who could drive the market up and down at will.

Though many investors are ruined, Fisk and Gould escape significant financial harm.

Gould had made a nominal profit from this operation, but will lose it in the subsequent lawsuits.

Jim Fisk and Jay Gould betray Daniel Drew in 1870, manipulating the stock price of the Erie Railroad and causing him to lose one and a half million dollars. (Fisk will be killed in January 1872 by a jealous rival over a mistress and Gould himself will later be swindled out of one million dollars worth of Erie railroad stock and will never control the Erie Railway).

Jim Fisk's business associate Edward S. Stokes, increasingly frustrated by his failed attempts at extorting Fisk and flirting with bankruptcy, shoots Fisk in New York City on January 6, 1872, in the Grand Central Hotel.

Fisk gives a dying declaration identifying Stokes as the killer, and Stokes will serve four years of a six-year prison sentence for manslaughter.

Fisk is buried in the Prospect Hill Cemetery in Brattleboro Vermont

Fisk had been vilified by high society for his amoral and eccentric ways and by many pundits of the day for his business dealings, but he is loved and mourned by the workingmen of New York and the Erie Railroad.

He was known as "Colonel" for being the nominal commander of the 9th New York National Guard Infantry Regiment, although his only experience of military action with this unit was an inglorious role in the Orange Riot of July 12, 1871.

Fisk had married Lucy Moore in 1854, when he was nineteen and she was fifteen.

Lucy, an orphan, raised by an uncle from Springfield, Massachusetts, had tolerated Fisk's many extramarital affairs and lives with a woman friend in Boston, suggesting she may have been a lesbian.

Regardless, they had remained close, with Fisk visiting her every few weeks and spending summers and vacations with her every chance he could.

In New York, Fisk had had a relationship with Josie Mansfield (1842?-1931), a showgirl.

Fisk had housed Josie in an apartment a few doors down from the Erie Railroad headquarters on West 23rd Street, and had had a covered passage built linking the back doors of the headquarters and her apartment building.

Fisk's relationship with Mansfield had scandalized New York society.

Mansfield had eventually fallen in love with Fisk's business partner Edward S. Stokes (1840–1901), a man noted for his good looks.

Stokes had left his wife and family, and Mansfield had left Fisk.

In a bid for money, Mansfield and Stokes had tried to extort money from Fisk by threatening the publication of letters written by Fisk to Mansfield that allegedly proved Fisk's legal wrongdoings.

A legal and public relations battle had followed, but Fisk had refused to pay Mansfield anything.