[5] His maternal grandfather, Alexander T. More, was a businessman, and his great-grandfather, John More, was a Scottish immigrant who founded the town of Moresville, New York.

[6] In 1856, Gould entered a partnership with Zadock Pratt[10] to create a tanning business in Pennsylvania, in an area that was later named Gouldsboro.

In 1856, Gould entered a partnership with Charles Mortimer Leupp, a son-in-law of Gideon Lee and one of the leading leather merchants in the United States.

[14] During the same period, Gould and Fisk became involved with Tammany Hall, the Democratic Party political machine that largely ran New York City at the time.

[15] Due to the struggle to keep Cornelius Vanderbilt from taking over their interests in railroad, Gould and James Fisk engaged in financial manipulations.

[16] In August 1869, Gould and Fisk conspired to begin to buy gold in an attempt to illegally corner the market.

Gould made a small profit from that operation by hedging against his own attempted corner as it was about to collapse, but lost it in subsequent lawsuits.

[20] Favored by Tweed Ring judges, the conspiratorial partners escaped prosecution, but the months of economic turmoil that rocked the nation following the failed corner proved ruinous to farmers and bankrupted some of the most venerable financial institutions on Wall Street.

In 1873, Gould attempted to take control of the Erie Railroad by recruiting foreign investments from Lord Gordon-Gordon, supposedly a cousin of the wealthy Campbell clan, who was buying land for immigrants.

[21][22] Having failed to convince Canadian authorities to hand over Gordon-Gordon, Gould attempted to kidnap him, with the help of his associates, and future members of Congress, Loren Fletcher, John Gilfillan, and Eugene McLanahan Wilson.

Canadian authorities put them in prison and refused them bail,[21][22] which led to an international dispute between the United States and Canada.

When he learned that they had been denied bail, Governor Horace Austin of Minnesota demanded their return, and he put the local militia on full readiness.

He took control of the Union Pacific in 1873, after its stock had been depressed by the Panic of 1873, and he built a viable railroad that depended on shipments from farmers and ranchers.

He immersed himself in every operational and financial detail of the Union Pacific system, building an encyclopedic knowledge of the network and acting decisively to shape its destiny.

Biographer Maury Klein states that "he revised its financial structure, waged its competitive struggles, captained its political battles, revamped its administration, formulated its rate policies, and promoted the development of resources along its lines.

Gould withdrew from management of the Union Pacific in 1883, amid political controversy over its debts to the federal government, but he realized a large profit for himself.