Jason Gould was America’s richest and most successful railroad developer, who became president of the Erie Railroad company only 9 years after he started his career in 1859. Gouldsboro, in Lehigh Township, Wayne County, was named for Jason (Jay) Gould, infamous “robber baron” of the 19th century. The community was previously known as Sandcut.

Until the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad opened up the area, it was undeveloped, but with increased access, the acres of virgin hemlock attracted lumbermen and tanners, including in 1856 Jay Gould, who began his fortune by starting a tannery with a partner, Zadock Pratt, at Gouldsboro. Gould was known to enter business partnerships, siphon off company money for personal real estate ventures, run the business into the ground, and then use company security guards to keep his partners outside the gates. In one noted dispute with a partner, their joint-venture tannery mysteriously burnt down. At one time, Gould and Pratt’s tannery was the largest in America. Unfortunately, Gould was caught cheating his partner and was forced to buy out Pratt, then caught again cheating a new partner. The tannery closed in 1861, but both the town of Gouldsboro and Jay Gould were by then well established.

In the years following the Civil War, a time when the American currency was weak, Gould (one of the richest men in the world, earning his first million by age 21) attempted to corner the gold market. Gould and his partner Jim Fisk were reckless financial speculators, who took advantage of nationwide corruption that extended from Wall Street to the President himself and attempted to drive the price of gold into the stratosphere.

When the scheme was busted by President Ulysses Grant,it resulted in the Black Friday crash of 1869 and his loss of control of Erie Railroad. Gould made a small profit from this operation but lost it to subsequent lawsuits. Gould was a driving force behind New York's elevated rail system. After the Black Friday crash, Gould began building railroads in the west and by the time of his death, had restored his fortune to $77 million. Unfortunately, a large sum of the fortune had to be given away to creditors, and by the time the third generation of Gould children inherited the fortune, they were left with only $5 million.

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