ations. One of the committee in charge was an
Irishman. He complained that the work was unduly expensive for the
reason that "the woodwork was all marble."

But before Stewart demolished and built, and before "Sarsaparilla"
Townsend built what Stewart later demolished, there had been a famous
mansion in this neighbourhood. Thackeray, in one of his letters to the
Baxter family, alluded to the long journey he was about to undertake in
order to travel from his hotel to a certain famous house up in the
country at Fifth Avenue and Thirty-seventh Street. That was the Coventry
Waddell house, on land where the Brick Presbyterian Church now stands.
Waddell was a close friend of President Jackson, and his fortune sprang
from the services he rendered as financial representative of the "Old
Hickory" Administration. In 1845, when he went "into the wilderness" to
build, the Avenue, beyond Madison Square, was nothing but a country road
lined with farms. It is told that when he was bargaining for the land,
his wife sat under an apple-tree in a neighbouring orchard. Nine
thousand one hundred and fifty dollars he paid for the tract, which ten
years later brought eighty thousand dollars, and for part of which the
Brick Church paid fifty-eight thousand dollars in 1856. The Fifth Avenue
Bank monograph contains a print of the villa, as it was called,
reproduced from "Putnam's Magazine." What the print apparently shows is
the Thirty-seventh Street stretch, with the wicket fence near the
corner, and the low brick wall extending westward beyond. The villa was
of yellowish grey stucco with brown-stone trim, Gothic in style, and had
so many towers, oriels, and gables, that when Waddell's brother saw it
and was asked what he would call it, replied, "Waddell's Caster; here
is a mustard pot, there is a pepper bottle, and there is a vinegar
cruet." There were a conservatory and a picture-gallery, and the house
stood considerably above the Avenue level upon grounds that descended to
the street by sloping grass banks. A winding staircase led from the
broad marble hall to a tower from which there was a fine view of the
rolling country, the rivers to the east and west, and the growing city
far to the south. There were celebrities other than the author of
"Vanity Fair" who sampled the quality of the Waddell hospitality. For
ten years the Waddells lived there, entertaining magnificently. Then
came the financial crash of 1857, Mr. Waddell was one of those wh