The Story of Samuel and Margaret Sloan

This is the privately prepared and printed biography of Railroad Tycoon Samuel Sloan (1817-1907) and his wife Margaret Elmendorf Sloan (1822-1913). Only one hundred copies were printed in 1927 and only for family circulation. I am deeply thankful to his granddaughter Marion Baker Sloan, daughter of Samuel Sloan III, for releasing this private biography to me and giving me permission to publish and circulate it to the general public, now only 86 years after its original private publication. The New York Times said: “Samuel Sloan, Builder of Railroads: No name in the financial and railroad world is more closely identified with building of the great railroad systems which serve New York than that of Samuel Sloan.” Samuel Sloan at the time of his death was director or officer of thirty-three corporations including Citibank, Farmers Loan and Trust Company, United States Trust Company, Consolidated Gas Company, and Western Union Telegraph Company. Samuel Sloan was President of the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad. Gustavus Myers, in his classic work, “History of the Great American Fortunes”, describes that Samuel Sloan as one of “the monarchs of the land … the actual rulers of the United States; the men who had the power in the final say of ordering what should be done.” That Samuel Sloan was an ally of J. P. Morgan. Samuel Sloan was one of the founders of what is now Citibank and his name is engraved in stone on the wall in the former Citibank headquarters at 55 Wall Street. There is also a statute of that Samuel Sloan one block from Journal Square in Hoboken, New Jersey.