Austin Corbin

Austin Corbin (July 11, 1827 – June 4, 1896) was a 19th-century American banking and railroad entrepreneur. He consolidated the rail lines on Long Island, bringing them under the profitable umbrella of the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR). He was the owner of Manhattan Beach, a resort in Brooklyn, New York City, from which he barred Jews. He was also the owner of the Sunnyside Plantation in Chicot County, Arkansas, from 1886 to his death in 1896, where he used convict laborers and later brought Italian immigrants to work on the land. Early life Austin Corbin was born on July 11, 1827, in Newport, New Hampshire, to Capt. Austin and Mary (Chase) Corbin, one of three siblings to survive infancy, along with Lois Corbin Dunton, (23 December 1819-7 July 1893), and Daniel Chase Corbin, (1 October 1832-29 June 1918). His brother, Daniel, was also a businessman, involved in banking and railroads, who contributed to the early growth of Spokane, Washington. Career Corbin taught school for a short time to earn money for higher education. After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1849, he practiced law in his hometown until 1851, when he moved to Davenport, Iowa. In 1854 he became a partner of the Macklot & Corbin banking firm, the only bank in Davenport to not suspend payments in the 1857 financial panic. This success set him up to start the first national bank, when his cousin, Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase, established the national banking system early in the Civil War. By 1865, when Corbin moved to New York City, he was considered wealthy.