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The Decline and Fall of the Commercial Empire of A. T. Stewart

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2012

Harry E. Resseguie
Harry E. Resseguie
Affiliation:
Millerton, New York
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Abstract

The disposition of the estate of the merchant A. T. Stewart, and the interplay of personalities, social mores, and the changing structure of merchandising in America provide the focus for this fascinating and neglected story.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 36 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1962 , pp. 255 - 286
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1962

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References

1 New York Tribune, April 11, 1876.

2 Ibid., Sept. 16, 1868; The New York Times, Sept. 19, 1868.

3 In 1872 A. K. P. Cooper, an executive of A. T. Stewart & Co., told a congressional investigating committee that the firm's imports comprised one tenth of the total imports through the Port of New York (The New York Times, Jan. 7, 1872). This estimate was generally accepted as correct by contemporaries, including the Times, then feuding with Stewart.

4 New York Herald, April 11, 1876.

5 Ibid., Sept. 18, 1846; Weisman, Winston, “Commercial Palaces of New York, 1845–1875,” The Art Bulletin, vol. XXXIV (Dec., 1954), pp. 285–302.Google Scholar

6 Annual Report of the Superintendent of Buildings, New York City, for 1867, pp.308–310; Burnham, Alan, “Last Look At a Structural Landmark,” Architectural Record, vol. 120 (Sept., 1956), pp. 273–279.Google Scholar

7 New York Herald, Sept. 18, 1846.

8 Ibid., April 11, 1876; Appel, Joseph H., The Business Biography of John Wanamaker (New York, 1930), pp. 52–53.Google Scholar

9 New York Tribune, April 11, 1876.

10 Ibid.; Haven, Alice B., “A Morning At Stewart's,” Godey's Lady's Book and Magazine (May, 1863).Google Scholar

11 The New York Sun, Feb. 5, 1873.

12 New york Herald, April 11, 1876.

13 The New York Sun, March 6, 1869.

14 Ibid., March 10, 1869.

15 The New York Times, April 4, 1871; The New York Sun, June 8, 1871.

16 Burial records of St. Mark's-in-the-Bowery, New York City.

17 The New York Sun, Feb. 5, 1873.

18 New York Tribune, June 1, 1894.

19 Doggett's New York City Co-Partnership Directories, 1841–1865.

20 New York Herald, June 11, 1859; The New York Times, March 7, 1867.

21 New York Herald, April 11, 1876.

22 The New York Times, Nov. 10–11, 1872.

23 The National Intelligencer (Washington, D.C.), March 10, 1869.

24 Testimony of John M. Hopkins, former chief bookkeeper for A.T. Stewart & Co., in Rosalie Butler v. Henry Hilton, etc., June 20, 1888, The New York Sun, June 21, 1888.

25 New York Herald, April 15, 1876.

26 Ibid.

27 Ibid.

28 Richard Lathers, a long-time political and personal friend of Stewart, related in his autobiography an anecdote in which he claimed the merchant had once declared he was training Hilton as his business successor. He related a conversation with Stewart inwhich he had observed it was sad that “this stupendous and unique business must be lost to the public when you pass away.” Stewart replied, according to Lathers, thatin such an event “the business will be continued in accordance with my plans … the machine is made and … I have the engineer ready to take my place….” Lathers remarked that he assumed Stewart was referring to Judge Hilton and reminded him that “trade demands other qualifications besides legal ability and the first of these is experience.” “That is just what, as an apt scholar, Judge Hilton is acquiring, and the art of trading is simple,” Lathers quoted the merchant as replying. (“Reminiscences of a Busy Life in South Carolina, Massachusetts and New York,” edited by Alvin F. Sanborn [New York, 1908], pp. 43–44.) Lathers was a nonagenarian when his reminiscences were published, however, and his inaccuracies concerning other phases of Stewart's career cast doubt on this anecdote. Had Stewart intended Hilton as his business successor he would have made this intent clear in his will.

29 New York Tribune, Aug. 25, 1899; Hilton's answer In the Matter of the Last Will and Testament of Alexander T. Stewart, Deceased, Before The Surrogate of the City and County of New York, June 14, 1876, reprinted in “Posthumous Relatives of Alexander Tumey Stewart” (New York, 1876), pp. 129–132.

30 New York Tribune, Aug. 25, 1899.

31 Ibid.

32 New York Herald, Nov. 4, 1863.

33 Brooks, James Wilton, History of the Court of Common Pleas of the City and County of New York (New York, 1896), p. 91.Google Scholar

34 The New York Times, July 26, 1866.

35 Original Minute Book of the Manhattan Club, New York, 1865–1877.

36 New York Herald, March 9, 1869.

37 Ibid.

38 The New York Sun, March 10, 1869.

39 Testimony of A. T. Stewart before the U.S. Senate Committee on Investigation and Retrenchment on General Order System of the New York Custom House, Jan, 6, 1872, The New York Times, Jan. 7, 1872.

40 Ibid., March 24, 1874.

41 New York Herald, April 16, 1876.

42 Ibid.

43 Ibid.

44 Testimony of J. Lawrence Smith in Rosalie Butler v. Henry Hilton, etc., New York Herald, Feb. 6, 1889.

45 Testimony of John M. Hopkins in Rosalie Butler v. Henry Hilton, etc., June 20, 1888, The New York Sun, June 21, 1888.

46 New York Tribune, Feb. 13, 1889.

47 Cross-examination of Edward B. Hilton by Joseph H. Choate in Rosalie Butler v. Henry Hilton, etc., March 21, 1888, New York Herald, March 22, 1888.

48 Cross-examination of Herbert Anstey, Hilton's private secretary, by Joseph H. Choate in Rosalie Butler v. Henry Hilton, etc., June 18, 1888, The New York Sun, June 19, 1888.

49 Testimony of J. Lawrence Smith in Rosalie Butler v. Henry Hilton, etc., Feb. 5, 1889, The Evening Post, same date.

50 New York Herald, April 16, 1876.

51 Ibid., Aug. 4, 1876.

52 The New York Sun, Nov. 13, 1888.

53 Testimony of Charles John Mercer in Rosalie Butler v. Henry Hilton, etc., Oct. 31, 1888, The New York Sun, Nov. 1, 1888.

54 The Chicago Tribune, Aug. 29, 1876.

55 Twyman, Robert W., History of Marshall Field & Co., 1852–1906 (Philadelphia, 1954), p. 42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

56 The Chicago Tribune, Sept. 21, 1876.

57 Ibid., Sept. 22, 1876.

58 Twyman, History of Marshall Field, p. 53.

59 Ibid., p. 54.

60 Ibid., p. 99.

61 The New York Times, Feb. 4, March 23, 1879; Jan. 20, 1894.

62 New York Tribune, July 31, 1876.

63 The New York Times, July 4, 1874.

64 New York Tribune, June 20, 1877.

65 Reprinted in The New York Times, Sept. 7, 1871.

66 New York Herald, Nov. 4, 1863.

67 New York Tribune, June 20, 1877.

68 Ibid., June 23, 1877.

69 The New York Sun, Sept. 5, 1888.

70 New York Tribune, Nov. 14, 1878.

71 U.S. Economist, Nov. 10, 1866; National Workman, Dec. 8, 1866.

72 The New York Sun, March 10, 1869.

73 Ibid., Aug. 22, 1873.

74 Ibid.

75 New York Tribune, March 25, 1878.

76 Ibid., March 26, 1878.

77 Ibid., April 3, 1878.

78 Ibid.

79 Ibid., May 27, 1878.

80 Ibid.

81 ibid.

82 Ibid.

83 Ibid., June 4, 1878.

84 Ibid., June 6, 1878.

85 Ibid.

86 Ibid.

87 Ibid.

88 The Nation, June 13, 1878.

89 New York Tribune, Feb. 22, 1902.

90 Ibid., Nov. 8, 1878.

91 Walling, George W., Recollections of a New York Chief of Police (New York, 1888), p. 229.Google Scholar

92 New York Tribune, Nov. 20, 1878.

93 Ibid., Nov. 26, 1878.

94 Ibid., Nov. 22, 1878.

95 New York Herald, Aug. 17, 1879.

96 Walling, Recollections, p. 230.

97 Ibid., p. 231.

98 New York Tribune, April 16, 1882.

99 Ibid.

100 Ibid.

101 Ibid.

102 Ibid.

103 Ibid.

104 The Nation, vol. 22, p. 232.

105 The New York Times, Nov. 6, 1895; New York Tribune, Nov. 6, 1895.

106 Ibid., Oct. 1, 1882.

107 The New York Times, Oct. 24, 1892.

108 New York Tribune, March 14, 1899.

109 Sparkes, Boyden S. and Moore, Samuel Taylor, Hetty Green, The Witch of Wall Street (Garden City, 1935), pp. 276–277Google Scholar; New York Tribune, Aug. 27, 1896.

110 Ibid., March 13, 1895.

111 Henry Morgenthau in collaboration with Strother, French, All In A Lifetime (New York, 1922), pp. 36–38.Google Scholar

112 New York Tribune, Aug. 27, 1896.

113 Ibid., Aug. 30, 1896.

114 Ibid., Aug. 28, 1896.

115 Ibid.

116 Men's Wear, Dec. 12, 1896.

117 New York Tribune, Sept. 14, 1896.

118 Ibid., Jan. 7, 1899.

119 Ibid., March 14, 1899.

120 Ibid., Sept. 29, 1896.

121 Gibbons, Herbert Adams, John Wanamaker (New York, 1926), vol. 2, p. 7.Google Scholar

122 New York Tribune, Nov. 14, 1896.

123 Dry Goods Economist, Nov. 28, 1896.

124 Women's Wear Daily, March 2, 1950.

125 Hower, Ralph M., History of Macy's of New York, 1858–1919 (Cambridge, 1943), Table 20, p. 256.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

126 Appel, Joseph H., The Business Biography of John Wanamaker, Founder and Builder (New York, 1930), p. 127.Google Scholar

127 Ibid., p. 126.