In 1853–4, Robert Schuyler, president and transfer agent of the New York and New Haven Railroad, issued some $2 million in unauthorized stock. This was America’s first large-scale stock fraud, and its discovery burst like a bombshell over the Eastern establishment. Schuyler had been president of five railroads, helped develop several more, and was known as “America’s first railroad king.” Moreover, his family was exceedingly well connected at the very highest levels of New York society. The fraud had important repercussions: for the company, years of legal battles and a loss of $1.8 million; for Wall Street, legal and procedural changes to prevent reoccurrence of this type of fraud; and for New York’s upper crust, a sense of shame and disapproval so strong it caused the very name of Robert Schuyler to be all but written out of the historical record. This paper acquaints the reader with Schuyler and his fraud by analyzing documents from the archives of the New York and New Haven Railroad bearing on the affair, including four of the original 1853–4 certificates for spurious shares; twelve 1863–4 agreements by which spurious shares were exchanged for genuine; and 1866 receipts for newly capitalized shares necessitated by some $1 million in Schuyler fraud claims awarded by the courts.

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