. He began to invest all his surplus money in New York real
estate. He bought acreage property in the vicinity of Canal Street.
Next he bought Richmond Hill, the estate of Aaron Burr. It consisted
of one hundred and sixty acres just above Twenty-third Street. He paid
for the land a thousand dollars an acre. People said Astor was crazy.
In ten years he began to sell lots from the Richmond Hill property at
the rate of five thousand dollars an acre. Fortunately for his estate
he did not sell much of the land at this price, for it is this
particular dirt that makes up that vast property known as "The Astor
Estate."

During the Revolutionary War, Roger Morris, of Putnam County, New York,
made the mistake of siding with the Tories.

A mob collected, and Morris and his family escaped, taking ship to
England.

Before leaving, Morris declared his intention of coming back as soon as
"the insurrection was quelled."

The British troops, we are reliably informed, failed to quell the
insurrection.

Roger Morris never came back.

Roger Morris is known in history as the man who married Mary Philipse.
And this lady lives in history because she had the felicity of having
been proposed to by George Washington. It is George himself, tells of
this in his Journal, and George you remember could not tell a lie.

George was twenty-five, he was on his way to Boston, and was
entertained at the Philipse house, the Plaza not having then been built.

Mary was twenty, pink and lissome. She played the harpsichord.
Immediately after supper George, finding himself alone in the parlor
with the girl, proposed.

He was an opportunist.

The lady pleaded for time, which the Father of his Country declined to
give. He was a soldier and demanded immediate surrender. A small
quarrel followed, and George saddled his horse and rode on his way to
fame and fortune.

Mary thought he would come back, but George never proposed to the same
lady twice. Yet he thought kindly of Mary and excused her conduct by
recording, "I think ye ladye was not in ye moode."

Just twenty-two years after this bout with Cupid, General George
Washington, Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, occupied the
Roger Morris Mansion as headquarters, the occupants having fled.
Washington had a sly sense of humor, and on the occasion of his moving
into the mansion, remarked to Colonel Aaron Burr, his aide, "I move in
here for sentimental reasons--I have a small and indi