Peculiarities of American Cities

by Willard W. Glazier

The names of Jacob Little, Leonard W. Jerome, Daniel Drew, Jay Cooke, Augustus Schell, Rufus Hatch, James Fisk, Jr., Jay Gould, Commodore Vanderbilt, Wm. H. Vanderbilt, and others, are permanently associated with Wall street. Jacob Little was known as the "Great Bear of Wall street." He originated the daring, dashing style of business in stocks, and was always identified with the bears. Meeting many reverses, he died at last, comparatively poor, the Southern Rebellion having swept away his little remaining fortune.

Leonard W. Jerome was at one time financially the rival of Vanderbilt and Drew, with a fortune estimated at from six to ten millions. He assumed an unequaled style of magnificence in living; but reverses came, and his splendid property on Madison Square, including residence, costly stables and private theatre, passed into the hands of the Union League Club, and was occupied by them until they went to their new quarters in Fifth Avenue. He himself is now forgotten, although a man scarcely past the prime of life; but his name is perpetuated in the Jerome Race Course.

Daniel Drew came to New York a poor boy, and, by persistent industry and business capacity, worked his way up to the highest round of the commercial ladder. In 1838 Drew put an opposition boat upon the Hudson, with fare at one dollar to Albany; and shortly afterward established the People's Line, which has been so successful. The panic of 1873 affected him seriously, but he staved off failure until 1875. He died in 1879, leaving next to nothing of the millions he had made during his lifetime. St. Paul's Church, in Fourth avenue; the Methodist Church at Carmel, Putnam County, New York, his native place; and Drew Theological Seminary, are monuments of his munificence while money was at his command.

Jay Cooke, having been already tolerably successful in business, amassed his millions by negotiating the war loan. He was regarded as one of the most prominent and safe financiers in the country; but in 1873 his failure was complete, and he has not since been heard of in financial circles.

Rufus Hatch is one of the successful stock operators of New York. Beginning life with nothing, and meeting reverses as well as successes, he is now known as one of the boldest and most gigantic of street operators.

The name of James Fisk, Jr., is associated with that of the Erie Railroad. He commenced life as a peddler. In 1868 he was appointed Comptroller of the Erie Road, and immediately set about building up the fortunes of that corporation. He appeared on Wall street as an assistant of Daniel Drew; made himself master of the Narragansett Steamship Company, and changed the condition of its affairs from disaster to success. He was one of the conspirators on Black Friday of 1869. He purchased the Opera House and the Fifth Avenue Theatre, finding them both good investments. He was shot by Edward S. Stokes, both himself and Stokes having become entangled with a woman named Helen Josephine Mansfield. After his death his supposed great private fortune dwindled into a comparatively small amount.

Commodore Vanderbilt also started in life a penniless boy, and became, eventually, the great King of Wall street. He built up the Harlem River Railroad, originated gigantic enterprises; sent a line of steamships across the ocean; gained control of the Hudson River Railroad and other roads; and died in 1877, worth not far from $100,000,000, the bulk of which he left to his eldest son, William H. Vanderbilt. The Vanderbilt name has lost none of its lustre in the hands of the second generation. In less than ten years, after a career of unequaled brilliancy in the financial world, William H. Vanderbilt retired, with a fortune probably double that of his father.

Jay Gould also achieved success from small beginnings. He was in company with Fisk in the control of the Erie Railroad, and an associate in bringing about the disasters of Black Friday. Soon after the death of Greeley he secured a controlling interest in the New York Tribune. He is still a power in Wall street, and a great railroad magnate.

Broad street still has historical associations clinging about it. At the corner of Broad and Pearl streets is the famous De Lancy House, built early in the last century by Stephen De Lancy, a Huguenot refugee from Normandy. In this house, on the evening of November twenty-fifth, 1783, Washington and his staff, with Governor Clinton, celebrated the evacuation of the city by the British troops, and a few days later Washington bade his officers farewell, before departing for Annapolis to resign his commission. The house, having passed through successive stages of degeneration, had at one time sunk so low as to have become a German tenement house, with a lager beer saloon on the third floor. It has recently been renovated, and has again put on an air of respectability. It still bears upon it the words: "Washington's Headquarters." All about it are, here and there, the relics of the past, in the shape of houses which once were homes of the gentility, in colonial times.

Pearl street is said to have been originally a cow-path, and it is certainly crooked enough to justify such an origin. It is the locality of the Cotton Exchange and the cotton brokers.