Chapter XXXI

After I had written somewhat of Jacob Lorillard of "the Swamp," who was many years tanner and currier and hide dealer in that region, and prided himself, when alive, that he was so employed for a long time—a friend called upon me with a book containing "the Life of Jacob Lorillard, by Rev. Mr. Berrian, D. D."

I do not pretend to give the full life of any one merchant, because I have not the materials. The Rev. Mr. Berrian does, for there is evidence that he had access to papers that could only have been afforded to him by the Lorillard family. Without any egotism, or without caring two straws, I will say that there is more of the real, every-day life of Jacob Lorillard in our unpretending chapters than in all the clergyman has written.

No wonder that merchants' biographies are stupid affairs. They are given with their "Sunday-go-to-meet-in clothes" on. With rich and rare materials out of which to make a capital life of Jacob Lorillard, and a most readable book, Mr. Berrian has made a "funeral sermon" instead of a life. Will it be believed of the merchant, Jacob Lorillard, whom we wrote about recently, that his biographer, Dr. Berrian, does not even allude to his having been in the leather business?

I gather a few items of wheat from the chaff, and add it to my own "old merchants;" "Jacob's father was of French and his mother of German descent. He was born in the city of New York in 1774," says Mr. Berrian. I had it that he died in 1839, aged 68 years. Mr. Berrian don't say when he died.

Mr. Berrian states that while Jacob was an apprentice to the tobacco business "the business in which the greater part of his life was spent, he passed his evenings in the patient study of the elements of knowledge which are usually learned in childhood." He adds; "He mastered in the same way the French language and afterwards the 'German.'" This could not have been a very hard task if his father was French and his mother German."

Mr. Berrian says; "he entered upon business with a capital of a thousand dollars, increased by a loan from his brothers of double that amount."

Three thousand dollars in cash in 1795 was a pretty good capital for any kind of business.

Mr. Berrian mentions that Mr. Jacob Lorillard was:

"A member of the New York Lyceum and Horticultural society."
"A trustee of the General Theological Seminary."
"A warden of St. Andrews church, Harlem."
"A vestryman of Trinity church."
"President of the German society."
"President of the Mechanics' society."
"President of the Mechanics' Bank."

He forgets that had he never been a swamp tanner and currier, he would have never been in all the subsequent positions.

Can it be possible that Mr. Berrian omitted the great occupation of Jacob Lorillard's early life, because he regarded it as a disagreeable one? So did not Mr. Lorillard regard it, and so did not the author of this book.

Jacob Lorillard was one of the best judges of leather in the Swamp, and he must have been regularly brought up to the tanning and currying trade, consequently he could not have been an apprentice to the tobacco business. In fact, I know that he was not. In my last chapter I stated that his tannery was on the corner of Pearl and Ferry or Frankfort street. That was an error of the pen. I meant on the corner of Pearl and Cross street (now Park street, and near Centre.)

In that tannery he served his apprenticeship. He afterwards bought and conducted it many years. He frequently boasted that this was the first property in real estate that he ever owned in New York. It is now owned by Dr. Ward of University Place. The doctor married his daughter.

Late in life, Jacob Lorillard kept his store at 16 and 18 Ferry street, and his residence was at No. 14 Ferry street. Fifteen years later, he removed to 48 Hudson street.

Jacob was a most energetic man. It is well known that for a great many years he was President of the "Mechanics' Bank." He took hold of it when its affairs were at a very low ebb—in fact, in a sinking condition. He brought its credit up, and made its stock the best bank stock in the city.

It is some years since he died, but long previous to that event—say twenty-five years ago—he divided up among his children an enormous amount, and yet retained an immense estate for himself. He gave as his reason for so large a distribution in advance of his death, that he wished his children to learn to take care of property, and to share its responsibility with himself.

Jacob was brother to Peter and George Lorillard of 30 Chatham street (old numbering, forty-five years ago, and afterwards 42 Chatham, the same building, but new number.) Old Peter himself lived at 30. Afterwards he removed his residence to 39 Chambers street.

Peter and George—P. & G. Lorillard, fifty years ago, 1810, were so rich, that even then they would never give a note. When they made purchases "on time," they expected to cash them at a good discount, and used every excuse to pay cash, and squirmed out of any note giving. If a concern refused to allow any discount, they would pay cash before giving a "promise to pay."

George died long before either of his brothers. He was a bachelor.

He left one of those queer wills, entailing his property sixty years. He violated a State law passed in 1828, forbidding property to be entailed. There was a step-brother named Hulse mixed up in the case. The will was contested, and finally broken. The result was, the vast estate of George came into good hands again, viz: his two brothers Jacob and Peter. It was over two millions of dollars in value when George died.

Jacob himself, when he divided up, shared twelve hundred houses among his children.

I have already mentioned that there was a brother accidentally wounded. It was Peter.

The deeds and documents held by Peter and George long before they died, can be fancied by a little anecdote.

Jacob went into the store of a neighbor in the Swamp and asked him to dress twelve sheep skins in a particular manner, that Mr. Lorillard described in detail.

Perceiving the astonishment of Col. K.—at so unusual an order, he observed, "The fact is, these skins are for my brothers, Peter and George. They want them to make bags in which to keep the deeds and titles of their real estate."

I am cheered occasionally by an approving letter from some of the old and honored human landmarks in the present century.

The aged Grant Thorburn writes me a letter in his own handwriting. A postscript is written at the foot in the handwriting of a young lady. She says: " Grant does not know any one named Walter Barrett." That is so, nor would Grant know the author, unless the latter could get back the pleasant boy's face he wore a part of a century ago, when in skylarking he used to break the glass panes that covered the flower beds in the open space before Grant's old church flower and seed storehouse in Liberty street.

I give a copy of the letter. The original, in the aged Grant's handwriting, I shall keep as long as I live. About Jacob Barker I shall have a good deal to say in a future chapter.

"I knew every individual mentioned in your list of Old Yorkers.

It's sixty-six years and seven months since I first saw New York. At that time the city contained only 40,000 inhabitants. Broadway commenced at the Bat tery and terminated at the head of Warren street. There was only one church in the city, above the Park. Hence, either at church or market, we saw each other often at that period. New York was in fact the city of brotherly love.

Among our prominent, bustling merchants, was Jacob Barker. He kept a bank of his own in Wall street for some years. It was called the New York Exchange Bank. His notes were as current as any in Wall street. Finally, he stopped payment. A poor widow in my neighborhood came in my store weeping, having a ten dollar bill on Jacob's bank in her hand. I told her to be of good cheer. I took the note to the bank-stated the case to Jacob-he cashed the bill at once, like an honest man.

Jacob Barker and Matthew L. Davis were the last friends that Aaron Burr possessed on earth. When Burr returned from Europe, whither he had fled after his duel with Hamilton, he kept his office on the west corner of Pine and Nassau streets. Having no clients, he was pleased when I stepped in to chat an hour. One day he remarked, 'when stopping in London I was apprehended as a spy under the alien law. I claimed my right as a British subject, having been born before the Revolution, and was discharged.'

Grant Thorburn.
"Aged 87 years and 11 months."

New Haven, Conn., Jan. 21, 1862.

That story about Jacob Barker and the $10 bank bill, puts me in mind of another. A young clerk then was made by his employer to go regularly every day, and get the specie for any bills of Jacob's Bank (it was called the New York Exchange Bank) in the possession of the store where he was employed. On one occasion he took down $63 of the Bank. He was late from some cause, and when he entered the building, it was five minutes past bank hours. He saw Jacob Barker.

"Who do you come from?" he asked.

The clerk replied:

"From A. G."

"Give him another bank bill in exchange, said Jacob.

It was done. Jacob's bank never opened again after that day.

I recollect Grant Thorburn when he kept around the corner from his old Quaker church store. His garden seed store was then in Nassau, where The Evening Post office is now located, and under which John McAuliffe sells his celebrated Irish whisky.

In writing about the Swamp merchants, I should regret not to mention several more than I have yet done.

Within my recollection, James Roosevelt kept at No. 8 Jacob street. It was before Cliff street was opened through. It was in previous years the alley way to the old Roosevelt sugar house.

That property ran back from Jacob street to Franklin square, and was thirty or forty feet wide. In the middle was a large sugar house, which stood where Cliff street now runs. The old sugar house was removed about 1826 or 1827, when Cliff street was cut through from Ferry to Frankfort streets.

Immediately where the street (Cliff) was opened, the Harper Brothers (then J. & J. Harper) occupied a double building at No. 82 Cliff, and also 327 Pearl. Hundreds of young clerks in those days, if they belonged to the "Mercantile Library Association," will recollect the spot, for the Library was for some years kept in the store of J. & J. Harper in Cliff street; and up to the time it was removed to the Clinton Hall, corner of Nassau and Beekman streets.

The locality between Pearl and Jacob was where that old sugar house stood. Many of our readers have frolicked about the old stone pile.

It was famed for a well of the purest spring water. The alley-way that led up from Jacob street was very wide, and generally contained two or three hundred empty sugar hogsheads.

That old sugar-house was the first erected before the Revolution, and worked during the war and for forty years afterward.

The proprietor who built it, and who manufactured sugar in it, was a great man in his day and generation.

His name was Isaac Roosevelt. His house faced on Queen street, now Pearl, in Franklin square. Harper & Brothers now own that property, and it is No. 333 Pearl street. On the rear of his house and in the centre of the block was the sugar-house. A large alley-way ran up to it from what is now No. 8 Jacob street. The Isaac Roosevelt mansion was originally 159 Queen street. To understand the matter, Queen street in those days of 1786, when the sugar-house and the old mansion were in their glory, commenced at Wall street and extended to Chatham, ending there, within a few rods of the great fresh water pond. From Wall street to Smith street, (William,) was Hanover square, from the last to Broad, it was called Dock street. From Broad to the Battery was called Pearl street. Now it is called Pearl from the Battery to Chatham, and even on to Broadway. That part was formerly Magazine street. Almost opposite to Isaac Roosevelt's residence (No. 159 Queen street, now 333 Pearl and part of 331) stood an old building, and it yet stands as 324 and 326 Pearl, and is called now, and has been for sixty years part of the Walton House. In 1786 it was occupied by the Bank of New York, of which Isaac Roosevelt was President.

There were two brothers Walton. One lived at 328, next door to the double house occupied by the Bank of New York.

After the bank was removed down town, a Walton occupied the double house. Whether he owned and built it, I am unable to say. At any rate, it was occupied by the Bank of New York before the Walton occupied it.

The house next door—No. 328—was the residence of a Mr. Walton in 1786. It is still standing. Thirty years and more ago, it was kept as a hotel by a Mr. Backus and a worthy man he was, for he was a host to this author about the cholera time of 1832. Abraham Bloodgood bought the old double yellow building or Walton House, occupied by the Bank of New York in 1786. Isaac Roosevelt was President of that bank then the only one in New York. The active old gentleman would get an early breakfast, run into his sugar-house in the rear and direct his son, who was his partner, under the firm of Isaac Roosevelt & Son, and then run across the street to his bank, and there remain and do business from the time it opened at 10 A. M. until it closed at 1 P. M., so that he and his clerk could go home to dinner at 3 P. M., it was opened again for business and was open until 5 P. M. But that was not all old and active Isaac had to do. George Clinton was Governor of the State, and Isaac was one of the seventeen senators of the State of New York. He had legislation to do occasionally. Only a few doors from his house at No. 5 Cherry street, lived John Hancock, for Congress met here in those years and up to 1786. If you wished to find out any Congressman then, you had to apply to "the Congress office, No. 81 Broadway, (old numbering,) corner of King street, (Pine,) where members are to be heard of." John Anderson & Co. keep a tobacco store there now.

What a lot of great directors president Isaac was surrounded with in his bank! There was Samuel Franklin who lived up at 183 Queen, (corner Pearl and Cherry.) He was son of Walter Franklin, who died in 1780. De Witt Clinton married his daughter. The great merchant, who owned acres thereabout, and who gave his name to the Square.

Another director was Nicholas Low, who did business at 216 Water street. Water street in those days com- menced at Burling Slip. Below that point, it was Front street. Mr. Low was father to the Nick Low who died recently, leaving his sister, Mrs. Charles King, wife of the president of Columbia College, $1,000,000. Another director and vice-president too, was William Maxwell. He kept a snuff and tobacco store at No. 4 Wall street. He was the progenitor of the Maxwell family—Hugh and William of our times, but very old they are now.

Another was the great Alexander Hamilton, who lived at No. 57 Wall street, where he practiced law, and even then rivalled Aaron Burr, who also had a law shingle up at No. 10, Little Queen street, (Cedar street,) which many years later Grant Thorburn says, he occupied.

Joshua Waddington was another director. He did business with his brother under the firm of H. & J. Waddington, at No. 30, corner of King and Queen streets, (Pine and Pearl.)

James Buchanan, of the firm of Buchanan & Thompson, 243 Queen street, (Pearl) was a director. He was a great man in our city in his day. The same name is not so popular just now in the new world. Thomas Randall, who lived at 28 White Hall, was a director. He was of the firm of Randall, Son & Stewarts, merchants at No. 10 Hanover Square.

Comfort Sands, of whom we have spoken in a previous chapter, (Nat Prime married his daughter,) was a director. He was a brother of Joshua Sands, who kept at No. 73 Queen (Pearl) street. He had a ropewalk in Brooklyn also. William Seton was the cashier and lived over the bank. His race and descendants in this city are well known.

The teller in the bank was an humble unassuming young Englishman, who boarded with Mr. Seton, named Charles Wilkes. He arose to be the cashier, and then president of the bank of New York. He was the Hapsburg of the Wilkes family of the town, and uncle of the navy captain who gave a name to "Wilkes Voyages."

This is a bird's eye view upon the past, and now I will go back to the old sugar-house and its owners, Isaac Roosevelt & Son. Their house (now Harper Brothers,) was occupied afterwards by DeWitt Clinton, and many gay scenes were enacted there when he was mayor and recorder. When old Isaac died, I do not know. It was before 1797. The son afterwards kept a sugar refinery at No. 10 Thames street, and resided at No. 18 South street, then containing many dwellings.

The Thames street sugar-house was afterwards occupied by Clark & Co., the Mineral Saratoga Spring water men, who ran opposition to the Jacob street mineral water, and put it down.

Then the old sugar-house was sold, and great buildings were put up there, and called Trinity buildings, by Clafflin, Mellen & Co., who have now removed to their new mammoth store in West Broadway, formerly Chap el street.

That Isaac Roosevelt breed was a proud old stock in New York annals long before the sugar house man. In his day he and his two sons were men of note in the city. He had a son named Oliver, who died young.

James, who lived at 8 Jacob street, another son, was alderman of the Fourth Ward, (present Fourth Ward) in 1809. James Roosevelt lived for some thirty years in Bleecker street, and died at the age of eighty-four, having been married three times. Firstly, to Miss Walton; secondly, to Miss Barclay; and lastly, to a Miss Howland, sister of the late Gardiner G. and Samuel Howland. Although he had numerous children, but two survived him; a son, Isaac Roosevelt, now residing at Hyde Park, and a daughter. Cornelius and James J. Roosevelt are of another branch of the Roosevelt family, not being descended from Isaac Roosevelt.

Isaac left three daughters, the eldest of whom married Richard Varick, once mayor of this city.

A daughter of James Roosevelt, married a Mr. Bailey. A son of the marriage is James Roosevelt Bailey, the honored Catholic bishop of New Jersey. The grandson of James Roosevelt, (the son of Isaac,) inherited nothing from his grandfather, the portion which would otherwise have been his having been willed to a Protestant theological seminary, on account of his having embraced the Catholic religion. Mr. Roosevelt, on hearing his grandson had become a Catholic, put a codicil to his will annulling his former large bequest to him, and cutting him off without a penny. Many of the Bishop's relatives and friends urged him to contest the will, but his indifference to all worldly goods, as well as his amiable, gentle disposition, would not allow it. Roosevelt Bailey, Bishop of Newark, in a pecuniary point of view, is poor, which would have been otherwise had his grandparent not altered his will. If I mistake not, his reasons for so doing are mentioned in the codicil.

I did not enumerate one quarter of the high offices held by Isaac Roosevelt, the sugar house owner, who was President of the Bank of New York, when the New York Hospital had a charter granted by the State, 13th June, 1771.

In 1792, old Isaac Roosevelt was President of the Board of Governors; and John Murray, mentioned in a former chapter, was treasurer. Their neighbor, Gerard Walton, was also a Governor. These three men all lived in Queen street, and in that part now called Franklin Square. Aaron Burr was also a Governor of the Hospital.

Jacob Roosevelt, bought in 1728 ten lots, each being 25 x 120 feet, "in the Swamp, near the Cripple Bush," for ten pounds each, through which a few years later Roosevelt street was opened. The same Jacob afterwards bought the whole of Beekman Swamp for one hundred pounds, through which his son afterwards opened Ferry street. Isaac, who opened the Sugar House on a part of this property, was a grandson of old Jacob.

Old President, Isaac's father, was named Nicholas. He was an alderman in 1748 to 1767.

Another brother of the last was alderman of a ward from 1659 to 1765. His name was Cornelius. A still older ancestor was an alderman in 1700.

There is one of the same name since become famed in commerce. James J. started in business in Maiden Lane at 102, (old number) now 94, as early as 1797. He was in the hardware business. He continued business as late as 1824, under the firm of James Roosevelt & Son. He lived at 99 Maiden Lane, and afterwards at 45 Broadway.

He is the father of James J. J., who is now U.S. District Attorney, and has been alderman, member of Congress, judge, &c. He married the daughter of one of the best men I ever knew, and that was good old Governor Van Ness of Vermont.

Judge James J. J. Roosevelt I once met in Holland, and trotted him all about Rotterdam, during a great Kermis (Fair) to ascertain whether the New York Dutch, (which he spoke) was the same as spoken in Holland. As the Holland Dutchmen and women could not understand Mr. Roosevelt, I concluded that their dialect had deteriorated from that spoken by the Dutch 200 years previous, when the "original Jacobs" Roosevelt left Holland for New Amsterdam.

There was a widow Margaret Roosevelt lived at 15 (afterwards 19) John street, a great many years. I could never make out whose widow she was.

Another James Roosevelt started in business in old neighborhood, 333 Pearl street near Peck Slip, before 1800. Forty years later the firm of E. J. & H. Roosevelt was doing business at 309-same place probably, and son of the old James.

A son of James J., of Maiden Lane, is one of the finest men in New York, worth two millions, and a director in the Chemical Bank. His name is C. V. S.