William Henry Vanderbilt.

William Henry Vanderbilt (VAN-duhr-bihlt) was born on May 8, 1821, to Cornelius and Sophia Vanderbilt. As a child, William was frail and often sickly. Because of his ill health, his father never thought much of William and regularly insulted him. Even into adulthood, Cornelius believed that William was not smart enough to run the family business and called him names like “beetlehead,” “blockhead,” and “good for nothing.” When William was a teenager, Cornelius got him a job in a New York banking house. The two men had a falling-out when William was nineteen and decided to marry Maria Louisa Kissam. Cornelius felt that his son’s decision to marry the daughter of a poor minister from Brooklyn exhibited bad judgment.