Harold Stirling Vanderbilt CBE (July 6, 1884 – July 4, 1970) was an American railroad executive, a champion yachtsman, an innovator and champion player of contract bridge, and a member of the Vanderbilt family. Early life He was born in Oakdale, New York, the third child of William Kissam Vanderbilt and Alva Erskine Smith. To family and friends he was known as "Mike". His siblings were William Kissam Vanderbilt II and Consuelo Vanderbilt. His maternal grandfather was Murray Forbes Smith. As the great-grandson of the shipping and railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt, he was born to great wealth and privilege; as a child he was raised in Vanderbilt mansions, traveled frequently to Europe, and sailed the world on yachts owned by his father. His nephew, Barclay Harding Warburton III, founded the American Sail Training Association. Vanderbilt was educated by tutors and at private schools in Massachusetts, including St. Mark's School, Harvard College (AB 1907), and Harvard Law School, which he attended from 1907 to 1910. Career After Harvard Law, he joined the New York Central Railroad, the centerpiece of his family's vast railway empire, of which his father was president. On his father's death in 1920, Harold inherited a fortune that included the Idle Hour country estate at Oakdale, New York (on Long Island) and equity in several railway companies, including Detroit, Toledo & Milwaukee Railroad, the Genesee Falls Railway, the Kanawha and Michigan Railway, the Kanawha and West Virginia Railroad, the New Jersey Junction Railroad, the New York Central Railroad, the New York and Harlem Railroad and the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad. Following the death of his brother William in 1944, he remained the only active representative of the Vanderbilt family involved with the New York Central Railroad. He served as a director and member of the executive committee until 1954, when the New York Central was subjected to a hostile takeover by business tycoon Robert R. Young. Young committed suicide four years later. World War I Vanderbilt nearly lost his yacht, the Vagrant, on Britain's entry into the First World War. The British competitor for the 1914 America's Cup, Shamrock IV, was crossing the Atlantic with the steam yacht Erin, destined for Bermuda, when Britain declared war on Germany on August 5, 1914. The British crews received word of the declaration of war by radio. As the commodore of the New York Yacht Club, Vanderbilt sent the Vagrant