Page:Vincent F. Seyfried - The Long Island Rail Road A Comprehensive History - Vol. 2 (1963).pdf/97



HILE the Flushing & North Side R.R. was still in the building stage, events were taking place afar that would profoundly affect the history of the road. In New York City there had appeared on the commercial scene in the 1850's and 60's a merchant prince whose success and wealth had far outstripped his nearest rivals and whose business acumen was observed with awe and envy by all the mercantile magnates of his day. Alexander Turney Stewart was born near Belfast, Ireland, on December 12, 1803. His family was English Protestant stock that had emigrated to North Ireland generations before. When Alexander was but three days old, his father, a landowner of modest means, died, and a grandfather undertook his education, which was of the best, including Trinity College, Dublin. Just after the boy's sixteenth birthday his grandfather died, and he decided to come to America. For several years he lived an easy, scholarly life, reading for the most part and living on the income from his patrimony.

When Stewart turned twenty-one, he decided to return to Ireland to claim his inheritance and was advised by a commercial friend that he might double the amount by investing it in dress trim which had a ready market in New York. On his arrival in Ireland, he discovered that his patrimony had declined to $5,000, and he decided to invest this sum as his friend had advised. When he returned to New York, he went into business with his friend's help and he soon prospered in selling gloves, fans, trimmings, and, especially, laces.

In 1848 Stewart moved into a large store at Chambers Street and Broadway, and here he became well-known as a merchant prince. Fourteen years later, in 1862, he moved into the famous iron store at Broadway and Tenth Street. Stewart's store was the first large building to have an internal supporting structure of iron girders. The Stewart store in its heyday in the 1860's