Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen | Page 5

money received for skins was then invested in
English merchandise, which was sold in New York at a profit. In
Eighteen Hundred, Astor owned three ships which he had bought so as
to absolutely control his trade. Ascertaining that London dealers were
reshipping furs to China, early in the century he dispatched one of his
ships directly to the Orient, loaded with furs, with explicit written
instructions to the captain as to what the cargo should be sold for. The
money was to be invested in teas and silks.
The ship sailed away, and had been gone a year.
No tidings had come from her.
Suddenly a messenger came with news that the ship was in the bay. We
can imagine the interest of Mr. and Mrs. Astor as they locked their
store and ran to the Battery. Sure enough, it was their ship, riding
gently on the tide, snug, strong and safe as when she had left.
The profit on this one voyage was seventy thousand dollars. By

Eighteen Hundred and Ten, John Jacob Astor was worth two million
dollars. He began to invest all his surplus money in New York real
estate. He bought acerage property in the vicinity of Canal Street. Next
he bought Richmond Hill, the estate of Aaron Burr. It consisted of one
hundred and sixty acres just above Twenty-third Street. He paid for the
land a thousand dollars an acre. People said Astor was crazy. In ten
years he began to sell lots from the Richmond Hill property at the rate
of five thousand dollars an acre. Fortunately for his estate he did not
sell much of the land at this price, for it is this particular dirt that makes
up that vast property known as ``The Astor Estate.''
During the Revolutionary War, Roger Morris, of Putnam County, New
York, made the mistake of siding with the Tories.
A mob collected, and Morris and his family escaped, taking ship to
England.
Before leaving, Morris declared his intention of coming back as soon as
``the insurrection was quelled.''
The British troops, we are reliably informed, failed to quell the
insurrection.
Roger Morris never came back.
Roger Morris is known in history as the man who married Mary
Philipse. And this lady lives in history because she had the felicity of
having been proposed to by George Washington. It is George himself,
tells of this in his Journal, and George you remember could not tell a
lie.
George was twenty-five, he was on his way to Boston, and was
entertained at the Philipse house, the Plaza not having then been built.
Mary was twenty, pink and lissome. She played the harpsichord.
Immediately after supper George, finding himself alone in the parlor
with the girl, proposed.

He was an opportunist.
The lady pleaded for time, which the Father of his Country declined to
give. He was a soldier and demanded immediate surrender. A small
quarrel followed, and George saddled his horse and rode on his way to
fame and fortune.
Mary thought he would come back, but George never proposed to the
same lady twice. Yet he thought kindly of Mary and excused her
conduct by recording, ``I think ye ladye was not in ye moode.''
Just twenty-two years after this bout with Cupid, General George
Washington, Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, occupied
the Roger Morris Mansion as headquarters, the occupants having fled.
Washington had a sly sense of humor, and on the occasion of his
moving into the mansion, remarked to Colonel Aaron Burr, his aide, ``I
move in here for sentimental reasons--I have a small and indirect claim
on the place.''
It was Washington who formally confiscated the property, and turned it
over to the State of New York as contraband of war.
The Morris estate of about fifty thousand acres was parceled out and
sold by the State of New York to settlers.
It seems, however, that Roger Morris had only a life interest in the
estate and this was a legal point so fine that it was entirely overlooked
in the joy of confiscation. Washington was a great soldier, but an
indifferent lawyer.
John Jacob Astor accidentally ascertained the facts. He was convinced
that the heirs could not be robbed of their rights through the acts of a
leaseholder, which, legally was the status of Roger Morris. Astor was a
good real estate lawyer himself, but he referred the point to the best
counsel he could find. They agreed with him. He next hunted up the
heirs and bought their quitclaims for one hundred thousand dollars.
He then notified the parties who had purchased the land, and they in

turn made claim upon the State for protection.
After much legal parleying the case was tried according to stipulation
with the State of New York, directly, as