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The desire to work was hereditary with Mr. Vreeland. His father incurred the displeasure of his own father and family, who were people of large means, by refusing to lead a life of gentlemanly idleness, and deciding, instead, to enter the ministry. The boy Herbert was the youngest son in a family of several children, each of whom in turn helped to support the mother and younger members after the death of the father. At ten years of age, in his passionate desire to do something, he drove a grocery wagon in Jersey City, to which his family had moved from his birth-place in Glen, New York, and, as before said, at thirteen years of age, he was hard at work in an ice business, of which an elder brother was superintendent.

“I first entered the railroad business in 1875,” said Mr. Vreeland, “shoveling gravel on one of the Long Island Railroad Company’s night construction trains. Though this position was certainly humble enough, it was a great thing to me then to feel myself a railroad man, with all that that term implied; and, when, after a few months’ trial, I was given the job of inspecting ties and roadbed at a dollar a day, I felt that I was well on the road to the presidency.

“One day the superintendent asked the boss if he could give him a reliable man to replace a switchman who had just made a blunder leading to a collision, and had been discharged. The reply was: ‘Well, I’ve got a man here named Vreeland, who will do exactly what you tell him to.’ They called me up, and, after a few short, sharp questions from the train-master, I went down to the dreary and desolate marsh near Bushwick, Long Island, and took charge of a switch. For a few days I had to camp out near that switch, in any way that might happen, but finally the officers made up their minds that they could afford me the luxury of a two-by-four flag house with a stove in it, and I settled down for more railroading.”