George Francis Train

George Francis Train (March 24, 1829 – January 18, 1904) was an American businessman who organized the clipper ship line that sailed around Cape Horn to San Francisco; he also was an organizer of the Union Pacific Railroad and the Credit Mobilier in the United States in 1864 to construct the eastern portion of the Transcontinental Railroad, and a horse tramway company in England while there during the American Civil War.

In 1870 Train made the first of three widely publicized trips around the globe. He believed that a report of his first journey in a French periodical inspired Jules Verne's novel ''Around the World in Eighty Days;'' protagonist Phileas Fogg may have been modeled on him.

In 1872, he ran for president of the United States as an independent candidate. That year, he was jailed on obscenity charges while defending suffragist Victoria Woodhull against charges regarding an article her newspaper had published on an alleged adulterous affair. Despite business successes in early life, he became known as he aged as an increasingly eccentric figure in American and Australian history. Provided by Wikipedia