"At the Tecumseh House, London, Ont., on the 21st August, 1869, by the Rev. William Briggs, Wesleyan Minister, Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, of New York, to Miss Frank Armstrong, daughter of Mrs. M.E. and the late Robert Crawford, Esq., of Mobile, Ala."
This wedding announcement appeared in the London Advertiser on August 21, 1869. Cornelius Vanderbilt, the New York railway magnate and his fiancee eloped to Canada in his private railway car. They arrived in London on the Great Western Railway. They were married in the acclaimed Tecumseh House which stood on the southwest corner of Richmond and York Streets. Rev. William Briggs, the minister of North Street Methodist Church officiated.
At the time of his death in 1877, Vanderbilt was worth more than $105 million. This was the largest fortune in U.S. history up to that time.