Daniel Drew

19th-century American financier and stock manipulator — former cattle drover who made and lost fortunes on Wall Street through manipulation of Erie Railroad stock and eventually died penniless.

Drew as the archetype of the Gilded Age financial manipulator: self-educated former cattle drover who discovered that stock manipulation (diluting shares, spreading false rumors, coordinating corners) could produce faster profits than productive enterprise. His warfare with Cornelius Vanderbilt over Erie Railroad (the 'Erie War,' alongside Jay Gould and Jim Fisk) is one of the great episodes in American financial history. The Erie War produced 'watered stock' — a term (from Drew's cattle-droving practice of feeding cattle salt to make them drink water before weigh-in) that became generic for financial fraud.