Chapter XVII

It does not seem possible to the author of these chapters that nearly three months have passed away since he penned chapter sixteen, the last written. The eminent name of Frederick Gebhard was last upon the list.

For three months the entire city as well as nation has been engaged by politics. That is all over now. Many of the merchants of the city, whose names will unquestionably figure in these columns hereafter, have been actively engaged in the recent political campaign. It was somewhat unusual. Merchants rarely trouble their heads about politics. This year two merchants were up for Congress. One was nominated by Tammany Hall—Udolopho Wolfe; and the other, Augustus F. Dow, by the Republicans. Through the instrumentality of another merchant, Joshua J.Henry, the Beaver street merchant, Mr. Wolfe, was forced to back down to give place to a regular politician, Gen. Ward, who was elected.

A commercial city like New York ought to send merchants as her delegates to Congress at every election. They are the proper persons to represent her. By commerce she lives, and moves, and yet she sends all classes to legislate for her except her merchants. This ought not to be. Since the Constitution was adopted, or for more than eighty years, New York city has had but few merchants to represent her in Congress. M. H. Grinnell was the last of any note. James G. King, the emiment merchant and banker, was in Congress, but he was elected from New Jersey.

Isaac Delaplaine, recently elected from the Eighth District, is the son of an old New York merchant, but instead of following in the footsteps of his excellent father, he pursues the circuitous track of a lawyer.

Ben Wood, elected in the Third District, may claim to be a merchant, or rather what he sells is "people" not, merchandize.

We have spoken in some of the earlier chapters, of the quantity of merchants sent to this town by Connecticut. In this issue we shall speak of a few more. Probably one of the most extensive grocery establishments in this city at the present moment, is Sherman & Collins, No. 65 Front street. About thirty years ago, George Collins and four other boys, viz: E. D. Morgan, Morris Earle, John J. Phelps and Amos R. Eno, emigrated from Hartford, Connecticut, to New York.

Halleck, in a poem called "Connecticut," writes of her people as a race that

"Love their land, because it is their own,
And scorn to give aught other reason why;
Would shake hands with a King upon his throne,
And think it kindness to his majesty.
A stubborn race fearing and flattering none,
Such are they nurtured—such they live and die.
All but a few apostates, who are meddling
With merchandise, pounds, shillings, pence, and peddling,
Or wandering through the Southern counties teaching
The ABC from Webster's Spelling Book;
Gallant and godly, making love and preaching,
And gaining by what they call "hook and crook,"
And what the moralists call over-reaching,
A decent living. Southerners look
Upon them with as favorable eyes
As Gabriel on the devil in Paradise."

Halleck further says:

"But these are but their outcast"

Certainly among these were not the young men I have named. They were all Connecticut boys, and came here to try their fortunes. But to return to Sherman & Collins. B. B. Sherman was originally from New Jersey. His father was a farmer at Long Branch. Young S. came to New York in 1828, when a boy, and entered as a junior clerk the extensive grocery house of Waddell & McCoon. In 1831 he became a partner under the firm of Waddell, McCoon & Co. Mr. Waddell retired with a fortune in 1833, and then the firm was changed to McCoon & Sherman. It continued so until about 1850, when McCoon retired as an active, and became a special partner. Collins then became a partner, and the firm was changed to Sherman & Collins. They have always stood high in the community. Both partners possess great business capacity and integrity of character. Mr. Collins "traveled through the Southern States, not teaching the A. B. C. from Webster's spelling book," but he was "gallant and godly," and was a clerk in a Mobile house with the great cotton merchant, twenty-five years ago, Barrett Ames. The latter was an enormous cotton shipper to all parts of Europe, as also to the North. He retired many years since from his extensive cotton operations in Mobile, came North, and now lives at Craigsville, up back of Newburgh, where he owns a large cotton manufactory. At this moment no grocery house in this city or country stands higher, or enjoys a greater credit than Sherman & Collins. They have lived through all sorts of panics, and never made a stop. They are about the oldest grocery merchants in Front street. Mr. Sherman, like the majority of long shore Jerseymen, is of small stature, stout built, but very quick in his movements. He is regarded as one of the best grocery merchants in the street. Mr. Collins is slender built, and carries Connecticut in his face.

Two other boys connected with the Connecticut emigration were Amos R. Eno and J. J. Phelps. They came in company, and in 1831 went into partnership in the dry goods business in Exchange Place, in the rear of the old Merchants' Exchange. Their store was about 20x30 feet. They had small means, small credit, but big hopes. The principal purchases they made were at auction, and they bought of all the great auction houses—John Hone & Sons, Hicks, Lawrence & Co., Adee, Timpson & Co., Mills & Minturn, John Haggerty & Sons, Boggs, Thompson & Co., Corlies, Mabbitt & Co. In those days almost every purchaser was required to give an endorsed note for the amount of his purchase. Eno & Phelps could not do it. Nobody would endorse for them. So they purchased for cash (payable in thirty days). In less than one year from their start, by their strict attention to business, their indomitable perseverance, and their economical habits, they gained a high position and became the largest auction purchasers. In fact, when present at a sale, auctioneers became anxious for them to buy, and would call upon them to bid. In the great fire of December, 1835, Eno & Phelps were burnt out. They then removed, to Hanover Square, near the store of Arthur Tappan & Co. After accumulating a large property by this business, they entered into real estate speculation. They were the first persons who took hold of property in Dey, Barclay, Warren and Chambers streets, and also in Broadway. When Eno & Phelps withdrew from commercial business in 1850, they were supposed to be worth over a half million of dollars each. Mr. Phelps has again gone into business at No. 340 Broadway, near where the old Tabernacle used to stand. His new firm is Phelps, Bliss & Co., and they do an enormous dry goods business.

Mr. Eno built the Fifth Avenue Hotel. The ground and building cost him over one million of dollars. They were both good merchants, prudent and economical in their habits, and their uprightness was beyond question.

Two more of those five Connecticut boys must be handled by me. E. D. Morgan has reached the position of Governor of this State, and has just been re-elected. He left Hartford with the rest named, in 1830. Morris Earle was along, and from the same place. In 1634 they formed a partnership under the firm of Morgan & Earle, and did a grocery business. There is a romance about the private history of these young men; their first loves, their piety, Sunday school teaching, and success, that would make a novel. But we have only room to deal with the rough outline of all of them.

The means and credit of Morgan & Earle were very limited, and their grocery business was confined principally to the section of Connecticut from whence they came. In 1837 Morgan & Earle dissolved partnership. Morris Earle put up his own single shingle, and E. D. Morgan was left alone. He at once turned his attention to speculation in the great articles of sugar and coffee, rather than try to extend his grocery business. His operations in sugar were principally with the South. He spent nearly all of the winters in the city of New Orleans. He visited every sugar plantation in the vicinity, and purchased the crops in advance of their being sent to the New Orleans market. In these immense operations he coined money. It was at this period of the future Governor's life, that he became so familiar with the domestic habits of the African negro while in servitude, and no one probably understands the negro character better than our Governor.

It is a very curious fact, that while E. D. Morgan made his wealth out of the Southern planters, he should have turned against them in after years, and became a King Pin in the ranks of the Republicans. Of late years grocer and Governor E. D. Morgan has engaged in various speculations, especially in railroads. He has the credit of being, to a certain extent, intimate with both Democrats and Republicans. He is fiftyfive years old, and worth $300,000.

Morris Earle, the old partner of the Governor, died two years ago. He was a hard working, energetic man, but only left $100,000 behind him. He had one very singular rule in his business. He required his clerks to be at the store before seven o'clock summer mornings, and kept them there until nine o'clock at night; in winter, 8 A. M. to 9 P. M. were the regular hours. By such hard work he shortened his own days. He overtaxed his mind, and it weakened until he died.

Passing down Wall street yesterday, I met E. K. Collins, and exchanged salutations with him. He looked rosy, hearty, and not as care-worn as when he had those mighty American steamships resting upon his single shoulders.

"You are not living here now?" I asked.

"No. Only occasionally I come here. I am off again to-morrow."

We parted. He was once an old merchant, and the son of an old merchant, who existed even in my day. He was E. K. Collins, Jr., thirty years ago; then the firm was E. K. Collins & Son. Their counting house was in South street, near Burling Slip. The father was old Captain Collins, who was for many years in the Vera Cruz trade, and commanded a vessel. Then he stopped going to sea, and in 1820 started as a merchant, and became the part owner and sole agent to a line of packet schooners and hermaphrodite brigs that traded between New York and Vera Cruz. The old house also established a line of packets to New Orleans. Old E. K. Collins died about 1830; then the firm still continued E. K. Collins, afterwards E. K. Collins & Co. I believe Count Foster, of New Orleans, was the Company.

Mr. Collins became one of the most successful packet agents in the Liverpool line. He was agent of the theatrical line, as it was called, viz. the "Roscius," the "Sheridan," the "Siddons," and others whose names I forget. His success in this line led to the establishment of the line of steamers, the "Pacific," the "Arctic," the "Atlantic," the "Baltic," and the "Adriatic." Millions of dollars were sunk in that line; it ruined Mr. Collins.

At one time he had a house in New Orleans and another in St. Louis. Mr. Woodruff, who was killed a few years ago, was his partner in the provision trade. The firm of Woodruff is still in existence in Broad street. For nearly fifty years the sign-board of E. R. Collins (father and son) was elevated in New York, and they did an immense business.

Another old concern, more fortunate than the Collins' (for it is still in existence) is the tobacco establishment of A. H. Mickle & Son. Mr. Mickle was born in the Sixth Ward, in Cross street, between Duane and Pearl. The house, a two story modern shanty, was standing until within a few years ago, and we have watched for hours the admirable discipline of about twenty lusty porkers, who used to inhabit it, and went out regularly for grub in the morning, returned about sundown, and then marched up stairs to their place in the attic.

Mr. Mickle has had a great success in life. When a boy, he was a clerk in a counting house up at the opposite corner to where the Custom House now stands. On the opposite side, lived a concern in which Schuyler Livingston, of the firm of Barclay & Livingston, was a clerk. In those days the boys in a store or office, used to clean the desks, inkstands, sweep out the office, &c. Also there was a City Ordinance that required all dirt to be swept to the very middle of the street. An artist, in those days, could have sketched the future Mayor Mickle, and the renowned merchant and agent of Lloyds, London, Mr. S. Livingston, each armed with a broom, and threatening vengeance upon the other for encroaching his dirt too far beyond the middle of the street, and trespassing upon the private sweeping dominion of one or the other. Such is life, or telle est la vie, as the Frenchman translated it.

Mr. Mickle when nearly grown, became a clerk with Mr. Miller, the great tobacconist in Water street, near Wall. He was very attentive to business—was a good salesman, and soon gained the entire confidence of the old man, and became his head-clerk. After Mr. Miller died, Mrs. Miller carried on the business, and made snuff, cigar and chewing tobacco under her own name, "Mrs G. B. Miller." Mr. Mickle married a daughter, and was made a partner in the heavy concern. After her death he changed the firm to A. H. Mickle & Son, and has a store or manufactory running from Broadway to New street.

A Mr. Lawrence married his daughter, and for his second wife, Mr. Mickle married a sister of Mr. Lawrence. Mr. Cornelius W. Lawrence married another sister.

When Edward Prime sold his father's old house, corner of Broadway and Battery Place, Mr. Mickle bought it and resided there while mayor of the city. When he reached that elevation Mr. M. saw the elephant, and has since retired altogether from the political field. Mr. Mickle has a high position among the merchants and financial men of the city. His word is as good as his bond. He has acquired a fortune of over a million of dollars, and that he may long enjoy it, is the wish of every person who has ever been brought into pleasant contact with him.