Origins & Early Life

James Fisk Jr. (April 1, 1835 – January 7, 1872) was an American stockbroker and corporate executive who was one of the robber barons of the Gilded Age. He achieved much ill-fame for his role in Black Friday in 1869, where he and his partner Jay Gould befriended the unsuspecting President Ulysses S. Grant in an attempt to use the President's good name in a scheme to corner the gold market in New York City.

Pivotal Works & Achievements

On January 7, 1872, Fisk was assassinated in New York City by his former mistress's new lover, Edward Stiles Stokes, who was attempting to blackmail him. Fisk was born in the hamlet of Pownal, Vermont, in Bennington County in 1835. After a brief period in school, he ran 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. Fisk applied what he learned in the circus to his peddling and grew his father's business.

Enduring Legacy & Impact

He then became a salesman for Jordan Marsh, a Boston dry goods firm. A failure as a salesman, he was sent to Washington, D.C., in 1861 to sell textiles to the government. By his shrewd dealing in army contracts during the Civil...

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