rect claim on the
place."

It was Washington who formally confiscated the property, and turned it
over to the State of New York as contraband of war.

The Morris estate of about fifty thousand acres was parceled out and
sold by the State of New York to settlers.

It seems, however, that Roger Morris had only a life interest in the
estate and this was a legal point so fine that it was entirely
overlooked in the joy of confiscation. Washington was a great soldier,
but an indifferent lawyer.

John Jacob Astor accidentally ascertained the facts. He was convinced
that the heirs could not be robbed of their rights through the acts of
a leaseholder, which, legally was the status of Roger Morris. Astor
was a good real estate lawyer himself, but he referred the point to the
best counsel he could find. They agreed with him. He next hunted up
the heirs and bought their quitclaims for one hundred thousand dollars.

He then notified the parties who had purchased the land, and they in
turn made claim upon the State for protection.

After much legal parleying the case was tried according to stipulation
with the State of New York, directly, as defendant and Astor and the
occupants as plaintiffs. Daniel Webster and Martin Van Buren appeared
for the State, and an array of lesser legal lights for Astor.

The case was narrowed down to the plain and simple point that Roger
Morris was not the legal owner of the estate, and that the rightful
heirs could not be made to suffer for the "treason, contumacy and
contravention" of another. Astor won, and as a compromise the State
issued him twenty-year bonds bearing six per cent interest, for the
neat sum of five hundred thousand dollars--not that Astor needed the
money but finance was to him a game, and he had won.

In front of the first A. T. Stewart store there used to be an old woman
who sold apples. Regardless of weather, there she sat and mumbled her
wares at the passer-by. She was a combination beggar and merchant,
with a blundering wit, a ready tongue and a vocabulary unfit for
publication.

Her commercial genius is shown in the fact that she secured one good
paying customer--Alexander T. Stewart. Stewart grew to believe in her
as his spirit of good luck. Once when bargains had been offered at the
Stewart store and the old woman was not at her place on the curb, the
merchant-prince sent his carriage for her in hot haste "lest offense be
given." And the day was saved.