btless, t'other side of Styx, his spirit has found
congenial companions. I see his shade in dignified disputation with
other shades. He argues with Brummel about the tying of a cravat, with
Nash about a minuet, the proper composition of a sauce is the subject of
a weighty dialogue with the great Vatel.

CHAPTER XIV

_The Crest of Murray Hill_

Stretches of the Avenue--The Crest of Murray Hill--The House of
"Sarsaparilla" Townsend--A.T. Stewart's Italian Palace--The
Knickerbocker Trust Company--The Coventry Waddell Mansion--A House at
Thirty-ninth Street--The Present Union League--A Tavern of the
Fifties--The "House of Mansions"--The Old Reservoir, and Egyptian
Temple--The Crystal Palace--The Latting Tower--"Quality Hill."

Although the name it now bears and has borne for four or five years is
the Columbia Trust Company, the building at the northwest corner of
Fifth Avenue and Thirty-fourth Street is likely to be known and referred
to as the Knickerbocker Trust for a long time to come. As such it was
the storm centre of the great panic which shook the country in 1907,
ruining many, shaking some of America's supposedly most solid fortunes,
and involving a dramatic suicide. The story of the site goes back almost
three-quarters of a century. There, at the beginning of the Civil War,
was the residence of "Dr." Samuel P. Townsend. Originally a contractor,
he had "discovered" a sarsaparilla, advertised it on an extensive scale,
acquired a fortune and the nickname of "Sarsaparilla" Townsend. His
house, a four-story brown-stone, was one of the wonders of the town. For
some reason he did not live in it long, selling it in 1862 to Dr. Gorham
D. Abbott, an uncle of Dr. Lyman Abbott of the "Outlook." For a number
of years Dr. Abbott, who had been the principal of the Spingler
Institute on Union Square, conducted a school there. Then A.T. Stewart,
the famous merchant, bought the site. He found brown-stone and left
marble. "Sarsaparilla" Townsend's pride and folly was tumbled to the
ground, carted away, and in its place there went up the Italian palace
that is still a familiar memory to most New Yorkers. It cost two million
dollars. Stewart did not live long to enjoy it. But after his death in
1876, his widow occupied the palace until her death in 1886, when the
property was leased to the Manhattan Club. There was a story to the
effect that during the club's occupancy it was found necessary to make
certain interior alter