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Seemingly destined for a commercial career, Jay Cooke received a preliminary training in a trading house in St. Louis, Missouri and in the booking office of a transportation company in Philadelphia, and at the age of eighteen entered the Philadelphia house of E.W. Clark & Company, one of the largest private banking firms in the country. Three years later he was admitted to membership in the firm, and before age 30 was also a partner in the New York City and St. Louis branches of the Clarks.
Cooke owned a summer home on the small Lake Erie island Gibraltar, located in the harbor of Put-in-Bay.
In 1858 he retired from the firm, and for the next three years he devoted himself to reorganizing abandoned Pennsylvania railways and canals and placing them again in operation. On January 1, 1861 he opened the private banking house of Jay Cooke & Company in Philadelphia, and quickly floated a war loan of $3,000,000 for the state of Pennsylvania.
In the early months of the American Civil War, Cooke cooperated with the secretary of the treasury, Salmon P. Chase, in securing loans from the leading bankers in the Northern cities, and his own firm was so successful in distributing treasury notes that Chase engaged him as special agent for the sale of the $500,000,000 of so-called "five-twenty" bonds authorized by Congress on February 25February 25 is the 56th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 309 days remaining, 310 in leap years. Events 138 The Emperor Hadrian adopts Antoninus Pius, effectively making him his successor. 1570 Pope Pius V excommunicates Queen Elizabeth, 1862Events January-March January 10 End of term for John Gately Downey, 7th Governor of California. He is succeeded by Amasa Leland Stanford. January 30 The first American ironclad warship, the USS Monitor is launched. February 1 Julia Ward Howe's " Battle Hy. The treasury department had previously failed in selling these bonds.
Cooke secured the influence of the American press, appointed 2,500 sub-agents, and quickly sold $11,000,000 more of bonds than had been authorized. Congress immediately sanctioned the excess. At the same time, Cooke influenced the establishment of national banks, and organized a national bank at Washington and another at Philadelphia almost as quickly as Congress could authorize the institutions.
In the early months of 1865, with the government facing pressing financial needs in the wake of disappointing sales of the new "seven-thirty" notes by the national banks, Cooke’s services were again secured. He sent agents into remote villages and hamlets, and even into isolated mining camps in the west, and persuaded rural newspapers to praise the loan. Between February and July 1865 he disposed of three series of the notes, reaching a total of $830,000,000. This allowed the Union soldiers to be supplied and paid during the final months of the war.
After the war, Cooke became interested in the development of the northwest, and in 1870 his firm financed the construction of the Northern Pacific RailwayThe Northern Pacific Railway ( AAR reporting mark: NP was a railroad that operated in the north-central region of the United States. The railroad served a large area, including extensive trackage in the states of Idaho, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, O. In advancing the money for the work, the firm overestimated its capital, and at the approach of the Panic of 1873The Panic of 1873 was touched off on September 18, 1873, when the Philadelphia banking firm Jay Cooke and Company closed its doors and declared bankruptcy. It was one of a series of economic crises in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The others occurred it was forced to suspend. Cooke himself was forced into bankruptcy.
By 1880 Cooke had met all his financial obligations, and through an investment in a silver mine in Utah had again become wealthy. He died in Ogontz, Pennsylvania , on February 8, 1905.