Page:Life of Isaiah V Williamson.djvu/100

82 income to meet his promise. At times many of his valuable securities were not producing incomes, though increasing in value; and in fact the increase of his four millions, at seventy years, to three times as much in the last fifteen years of his life, was largely due to this great appreciation of values in capital stocks, bonds and real estate.

As an illustration of his method of giving away his income, it may be mentioned that about 1868 or 1870 he owned several lots or squares in the southwestern part of Philadelphia, which he was interested in building up. This section was in the neighborhood around Carpenter, Christian, Reed, Dickinson, Mt. Holly and Lingo Streets, between Fifteenth and Twentieth. As these properties were sold, he made advances to insure the erection of buildings, and reserved yearly ground rents, according to a local Philadelphia custom now not so much in vogue as formerly. Of those hundred or more ground rents nearly