Durant was born February 6, 1820, in
Lee, Massachusetts. He studied medicine at
Albany Medical College where, in 1840, he graduated
cum laude and briefly served as assistant professor of surgery. After he retired from medicine, he became a director of his uncle's grain exporting company: Durant, Lathrop and Company in New York City. While working with the
prairie wheat trade, Durant realized the need for improved inland transportation, which led to his interest in the railroad industry. Durant started in the railroad industry as a broker for the
Chicago and Rock Island Railroad. During that time, Durant became professionally acquainted with
Henry Farnam. The two men created a new contracting company under the name of Farnam and Durant. In 1853, they received a commission to raise capital and manage construction for the newly chartered
Mississippi and Missouri Railroad (M&M). The M&M Railroad acquired major land grants to build
Iowa's first railroad (planned to go from
Davenport on the
Mississippi River to
Council Bluffs on the
Missouri River). The centerpiece of the M&M was a wooden railroad bridge, which, when completed in 1856, was the first bridge across the Mississippi River. The bridge linked the M&M to the
Chicago and Rock Island Railroad. After a
steamboat hit the bridge, boat operators sued to have the bridge dismantled. Durant and the Rock Island hired private attorney
Abraham Lincoln to defend the bridge. This association played to Durant's favor in 1862, when President Lincoln selected Durant's new company, the
Union Pacific, and its operation center in
Council Bluffs, Iowa, as the starting point of the
First transcontinental railroad. "Like
Samson he would not hesitate to pull down the temple even if it meant burying himself along with his enemies." Durant had a ruthless reputation for squeezing friend and foe for personal gain. As general agent for the UP Eastern Division, Durant was also charged with raising money, acquiring resources, and securing favorable national legislation for the company. In addition to securing an enlarged land grant from Congress in 1864 as part of the legislature's subsidizing distribution of 100 million public acres, Durant effectively reacted to the Union Pacific's failure to sell significant stock in light of the
Pacific Railroad Act of 1862 ruling that merchant holding would be limited to 200 shares per person. Proposing to finance the required ten percent down payment on stock himself, Durant campaigned to brokers and merchants in the New York and Philadelphia areas on the condition that he would be reimbursed at a later date. Persuading various politicians to invest as limited stockholders, amongst others, Durant successfully issued $2.18 million of UP stock to subscribers. At the same time, Durant manipulated the stock market, running up the value of his M&M stock by saying he was going to connect the Transcontinental Railroad to it. He was secretly buying competing rail line stock, and then said the Transcontinental Railroad was going to go to that line. Since the government paid for each mile of track laid, Durant overrode his engineers and ordered extra track laid in large oxbows. In the first years, the Union Pacific did not extend further than from Omaha, Nebraska. As the federal government was waging the
Civil War, Durant avoided its oversight on railroad construction. During the Civil War, Durant made a fortune smuggling
contraband cotton from the
Confederate States with the help of General
Grenville M. Dodge. Durant then manipulated Crédit Mobilier's structure so that he wound up in control of it. UP was effectively paying him via Crédit Mobilier to build the railroad. Durant concealed his actions by having various politicians, including future President
James Garfield, as limited stockholders. Things got worse for Durant when it came clear that he had violated the 1862 Pacific Railroad Act by using his control of the Crédit Mobilier to become the majority stockholder in the Union Pacific Railroad. There was also suspicion that Durant had taken money from the company, yet it seems that his co-workers were too fearful of him to meet clandestinely to discuss this possibility. In 1867 Durant was ousted from his position managing Crédit Mobilier. President
Ulysses S. Grant fired Durant from Union Pacific. The Crédit Mobilier company had been increasingly associated with corruption and secrecy and the government was fed up with not being paid back for loans and the swindling that went on at each company. Like many others, Durant lost a great deal of his wealth in the
Panic of 1873. He sold his remaining stock in Union Pacific and started a new railroad company, Adirondack Railroad. He spent the last twelve years of his life fighting lawsuits from disgruntled partners and investors. ==Marriage and family==