city in investing his
profits that made him the richest man in America. When he first trod
the streets of New York, in 1784, the city was a snug, leafy place of
twenty-five thousand inhabitants, situated at the extremity of the
Island, mostly below Cortlandt Street. In 1800, when he began to have
money to invest, the city had more than doubled in population, and had
advanced nearly a mile up the Island. Now, Astor was a shrewd
calculator of the future. No reason appeared why New York should not
repeat this doubling game and this mile of extension every fifteen
years. He acted upon the supposition, and fell into the habit of
buying lands and lots just beyond the verge of the city. One little
anecdote will show the wisdom of this proceeding. He sold a lot in the
vicinity of Wall Street, about the year 1810, for eight thousand
dollars, which was supposed to be somewhat under its value. The
purchaser, after the papers were signed, seemed disposed to chuckle
over his bargain.

"Why, Mr. Astor," said he, "in a few years this lot will be worth
twelve thousand dollars."

"Very true," replied Astor; "but now you shall see what I will do with
this money. With eight thousand dollars I buy eighty lots above Canal
Street. By the time your lot is worth twelve thousand dollars, my
eighty lots will be worth eighty thousand dollars"; which proved to be
the fact.

His purchase of the Richmond Hill estate of Aaron Burr was a case in
point. He bought the hundred and sixty acres at a thousand dollars an
acre, and in twelve years the land was worth fifteen hundred dollars a
lot. In the course of time the Island was dotted all over with Astor
lands,--to such an extent that the whole income of his estate for
fifty years could be invested in new houses without buying any more
land.

His land speculations, however, were by no means confined to the
little Island of Manhattan. Aged readers cannot have forgotten the
most celebrated of all his operations of this kind, by which he
acquired a legal title to one third of the county of Putnam in this
State. This enormous tract was part of the estate of Roger Morris and
Mary his wife, who, by adhering to the King of Great Britain in the
Revolutionary War, forfeited their landed property in the State of New
York. Having been duly attainted as public enemies, they fled to
England at the close of the war, and the State sold their lands, in
small parcels, to honest Whig farmers. The estate comprised fi