George Francis Train

George Francis Train ( born March 24, 1829 in Boston, Massachusetts, † January 5, 1904 in New York) was an American businessman, writer, author and eccentric traveler. His world tour in July 1870 was the model for Jules Verne's novel Around the World in 80 Days.

Life

George Francis Train was born in 1829 as son of Oliver Train. Train lost age of four, both parents by a yellow fever epidemic in New Orleans and was raised by his grandparents in Boston to strict Methodist principles.

At a young age Train worked as a merchant in Chicago and in 1853 in Australia. In 1860 he went to England, where he founded Pferdetramways in Birkenhead and London, but were unsuccessful because of their over the road surface projecting rails. During the American Civil War Train lectured in the UK and Ireland in favor of the Northern states. In 1862 he returned to the U.S. and was involved in the founding of the Union Pacific Railroad and the American Credit Mobilier. In 1864 he settled again in England. Train was successful in business, including as a shipowner and was a well known author, but was increasingly seen as an eccentric. He wrote a total of eleven books, ran unsuccessfully in 1872 for the presidency of the United States, claiming Australian revolutionaries had offered him the presidency of an Australian republic to be established.

In 1870 he undertook his first highly acclaimed world tour, the Jules Verne inspired. Train remained active as a railroad founders, such as the Atlantic and Great Western Railroad in Pennsylvania, for their funding, he won the Queen of Spain as an investor. In connection with his involvement with the Union Pacific, he was highly successful as a real estate speculator.

Train was very fond of traveling. His companion was usually George Pickering Bemis, his cousin and private secretary, later mayor of Omaha, Nebraska.

Train financed the frauenrechtlerische newspaper The Revolution of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. His second world tour of 1890 lasted 67.5 days; his third and final world tour he undertook in 1892. lasted 60 days.

The World Tour 1870

Order of the stations:

• New York
• San Francisco ( train, having already three days after the beginning of the world travel the Mississippi River reached )
• From there to Japan ( Sailboat - in Japan, he caused a scandal because he jumped naked in a public bath However, the incident remained for him without consequences.. )
• Hong Kong
• Saigon
• Singapore
• Marseille ( through the Suez Canal )
• Lyon (where he went to jail for 13 days)
• Liverpool ( private train to the English Channel, then voyage to England)
• New York ( the ship in Liverpool he caught just barely, so he returns to exactly 80 days )

Jules Verne's novel was published three years later.

About "his" name and change of character in Jules Verne's novel Train showed up angry. His defiant last words were, therefore, supposedly, "I am Phileas Fogg! "

Works

• An American Merchant in Europe, Asia, and Australia ( 1851)
• Young America Abroad ( 1857)
• Young America in Wall Street ( 1858)
• Irish Independency (1865 )
• Championship of Women (1868 )
• My Life in Many States and in Foreign Lands (1902 )