CHAPTER XLVIII

LARGE FORTUNES AND THEIR DISPOSITION.

HOW THE FORTUNES OF THE ASTORS WERE MADE.-GEORGE PEABODY AND HIS PHILANTHROPIC SCHEMES.-JOHNS HOPKINS AND HIS PECULIARITIES.-A. T. STEWART AND HIS ABORTIVE PLANS.-A SCULPTOR'S OPINION OF HIS HEAD. -ECCENTRICITIES OF STEPHEN GIRARD, AND HOW HE TREATED HIS POOR SISTER. HIS PENURIOUS HABITS AND GREAT DONATIONS.-JAMES LENOX AND THE LIBRARY WHICH HE LEFT.-How PETER COOPER MADE HIS FORTUNE, AND HIS LIBERAL GIFTS TO THE CAUSE OF EDUCATION. SAMUEL J. TILDEN'S MUNIFICENT BEQUESTS. -THE VANDERBILT CLINIC.-LICK, CORCORAN, STEVENS AND CATHARINE WOLF.

I

SHALL take a short review in this chapter of some of the most prominent wealthy men who have been the architects of their own fortunes, and comment briefly on their methods of disposing of their estates.

In the United States, John Jacob Astor was one of the first to arrest public attention in the matter of large fortunes. Before his day there were few, if any, millionaires on this side of the Atlantic. Now there are thousands of these lucky individuals. It is true, George Washington, the Father of our country, was very comfortably fixed, and supported aristocratic style in his domestic life, but he probably never was worth more, all told, than $200,000. It is singular that none of his successors have ever been worth even this amount. It was believed at one time that Grant had accumulated a large amount of money and value, and was fast approaching the financial status of a millionaire, but this popular delusion was suddenly dispelled when he and his family were victimized by the first young Napoleon of finance, Ferdinand Ward.

The founder of the now wealthy house of Astor and of the Astor Library died in 1848, at the age of 85. He left

the greater bulk of his estate to his son, William B. Astor. He bequeathed $400,000 to the Astor Library, also a few legacies, amounting in all, the library inclusive, to about $500,000. His wealth, at the time of his death, was estimated at twenty millions, a very large fortune at that time.

William B. Astor, who died in 1875, left $250,000 to the library, and the large balance of his estate to his sons and widow.

The Astors have been characteristic for their benefactions,. in a quiet way, to a large number of public objects Their estate is remarkable for the way it has been kept intact, and for its steady and considerably rapid improvement, and they are popular as landlords.

The elder Astor who came to this country from Waldorf in Germany, near Heidelberg, before he was 20 years of age, and who started in life dealing in furs, had a grand scheme on foot at one time for monopolizing the fur trade of the whole world, which he had calculated would then have brought him a million dollars a year. He was diverted from this purpose by the large profits which he found in real estate, by dealing in which he made most of his money; and the family has steadily adhered to this line of speculation and investment through two generations.

The native American who, perhaps, ranks above all others in the munificence of his gifts, and the beneficence of his purpose was George Peabody. He was a poor Massachusetts boy, who, by hard industry, arose to be one of the largest millionaires of his day. He was also a philanthropist in the highest sense of the term. His fortune at one time probably exceeded ten millions. His well-known benefactions, during his life, exceeded seven million dollars, and it is supposed that he gave away vast amounts in charity of which no definite account was kept.

Shortly before his death, in 1869, he bequeathed two and a half millions as a building fund for lodging houses for the poor of London, and devised for a Southern Education Fund

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two million one hundred thousand. In addition to these he left five millions to various relatives. J. S. Morgan, who was Mr. Peabody's partner in the banking business, became, at his death, his successor, and is now supposed to be a richer man than Mr. Peabody ever was.

Johns Hopkins, who died at Baltimore in 1873, at the age of 78, was one of the most eccentric millionaires and philanthropists. Very few expected that he would bequeath the great university and the hospital which are called by his name. He was so wretchedly penurious that he hardly afforded himself the means of subsistence. His benefactions to these two institutions, however, exceed eight million dollars.

Alexander T. Stewart, the great dry goods merchant, who was reputed to be one of the three wealthiest men in the United States, Commodore Vanderbilt and John Jacob Astor being the other two, died in 1876. He had no legitimate heirs, and his estate, estimated at one time between twenty and thirty millions, was left to his wife, with the exception of a million to Judge Hilton and $325,000 to his employes.

Mr. Stewart's two great benefactions were failures, as he left nobody able and willing to carry out his intentions in regard to their arrangement.

They would probably have been failures in any event, as they seemed to the majority of people to be in a large measure Utopian. One was Garden City on Long Island, intended to be homes for industrious mechanics on a higher and more comfortable scalo than the majority of the dwelling of these sons of physical and intellectual toil. A grand cathedral was built there in memory of the merchant prince, and a beautiful crypt for his mortal remains, which were stolen from St. Mark's churchyard shortly after the interment.

The mechanics and laborers were not attracted to Garden City, and it is now making slow progress with tenants whose avocations are generally in the higher walks of life.

The other great enterprise was a home for girls and women at moderate expense. This was in the shape of a hotel on a large scale at Park Avenue and Thirty-third street. The restrictions and the prices were such that the home also failed to attract the class it was intended for. The public gift, therefore, reverted to the Stewart estate, or rather was taken forcible pessession of by the trustees and transformed into the Park Avenue Hotel. To carry out the rather indefinite terms of the bequest would probably have involved the expenditure of a very large amount of the Stewart estate, and, perhaps, the enterprise would even then have been a failure. It is more than probable that if Mr. Stewart had lived a few years longer, he himself would have been satisfied with the impracticability of both his semiphilanthropic schemes.

There were great things expected in the shape of benefactions from Mr. Stewart at the time of his death. He had done so little in that respect while living that the public indulged the hope that he would make up for his charitable short-comings when he found that his worldly accumulations could no longer be of any service or gratification to him, and that he could not take any of them away with him.

Hence, it was a considerable disappointment to the public when the will revealed the fact that nothing had been devised, out of the immense hoard of nearly half a century's savings, to charitable purposes.

On the day of his death I had an engagement with my 'dentist, Mr. Dwinell, in Thirty-fourth street, and while I was seated in the chair Mr. Wilson MacDonald, the well known sculptor, came in to pay a visit to the dentist, with whom he was well acquainted. Having been introduced by the sculptor, we immediately entered into conversation on the prominent local topic of the day, the death of Mr. Stewart and the probable distribution of his wealth.

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Mr. MacDonald invited me to go to his studio to see a bust in clay of Mr. Stewart that he had just about finished. He said, "I knew Mr. Stewart's aversion to having any portraits or photographs taken of himself during his lifetime, so I provided for the emergency some time ago by taking close observation of him at various intervals. During the past two years I have frequently come in contact with him, going into his store and getting a good look at him from various points of view, so as to impress his likeness upon my mind. I have thus succeeded in getting a pretty good bust of him in clay."

Mr. MacDonald was very anxious that I should call and see this bust, because, as I knew Mr. Stewart so well, he in. ferred that my judgment would be worth something, and he expressed a desire that I should criticise his work. I promised him I would call and see the bust as soon as I could spare the time.

On leaving the dentist's office I made another engagement to go back the following week, and in the meantime I had been unable to call at the studio of the artist, but the latter happened to be in the office of the dentist when I called there again. The will of Mr. Stewart had been published in the interim, and in it all reference to charities and benevolent institutions had been carefully omitted.

Mr. MacDonald reminded me that I had not called to see the bust, and added, "If you had called that time you would hardly recognize any resemblance between what it is now and what it was then." "How is that?" I inquired. "Because," he replied (facetiously), "as soon as I saw the will published in the newspapers and none of that immense pile left to the public, from whom it had been collected, I set to work and toned down the bumps of benevolence, conscientiousness, sublimity, veneration and ideality, making those of acquisitiveness, inhabitiveness, amativeness and all the selfish and animal propensities prominent. I naturally concluded, if phrenology is not a fraud, that Stewart's will was