Ezra Cornell - Later Life

Later Life

Ezra Cornell entered the railroad business, but fared poorly due to the Panic of 1873. He began construction of a palatial Ithaca mansion, Llenroc (Cornell spelled in reverse) to replace his farmhouse, Forest Home, but died before it was completed. Llenroc was maintained by Cornell's heirs for several decades until being sold to the local chapter of the Delta Phi fraternity, which occupies it to this day; Forest Home was sold to the Delta Tau Delta chapter and later demolished. Cornell is interred in Sage Chapel on Cornell's campus, along with Daniel Willard Fiske and Jennie McGraw.

A prolific letter writer, Ezra corresponded with a great many people and would write dozens of letters each week. This was due partly to his wide traveling, and also to the many business associates he maintained during his years as an entrepreneur and later as a politician and university founder. Cornell University has made the approximately 30,000 letters in the Cornell Correspondence available online.

His eldest son, Alonzo B. Cornell, was later governor of New York. Since its founding, the University's charter specified that the eldest lineal descendent of Cornell is granted a life seat on Cornell University's Board of Trustees, currently Ezra Cornell IV. (Since Ezra Cornell IV took the post on November 17, 1969, the law was amended from specifying the "eldest male lineal descendent.")

In 1990, G. David Low, graduate of Cornell University and Space Shuttle astronaut, took with him into outer space a pair of tan silk socks worn by Ezra Cornell on his wedding day in 1831.