author
Chauncey M. (Chauncey Mitchell) Depew
1834–1928
A celebrated Gilded Age speaker, railroad executive, and U.S. senator, he was known in his own time as much for his wit and storytelling as for his public career. His life moved from New York politics to the boardrooms of the New York Central Railroad, making him a vivid figure in American history.
1 Audiobook
My Memories of Eighty Years
by Chauncey M. (Chauncey Mitchell) Depew
About the author
Born in Peekskill, New York, in 1834, he studied at Yale and trained as a lawyer before entering public life. Early in his career he served in the New York Assembly and later as New York secretary of state, building a reputation as a gifted Republican speaker and campaigner.
He became even more prominent through his long association with the Vanderbilt interests and the New York Central Railroad, serving as an attorney and later as president of the railroad system. Alongside his business career, he remained a famous public personality, widely admired for after-dinner speeches, humor, and a polished speaking style that made him one of the best-known American orators of his era.
From 1899 to 1911, he represented New York in the U.S. Senate for two terms. He died in 1928, leaving behind a career that linked politics, railroads, and the social world of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.