A. T. STEWART, MILLIONAIRE,

Mataura Ensign, Volume V, Issue 224, 26 January 1883, Page 6

A.T. STEWART, MILLIONAIRE.

With reference to the ' Story of a Fortune' which recently went the rounds of the newspapers, and which gave an account of the connection and career of the late A. T. Stewart of New York, whose celossal fortune of fifteen or sixteen millions the Annandale Stewarts are prepared to serve themselves heirs to, a correspondent of the Dumfries Standard, signing himself I F. B: writes as follows :— The story is so circumstantially concocted, and as it contains the names of several gentlemen to whom reference could be made as to the substantiality of the facts related, few would be willing to question their authenticity or doubt their being absolutely true. And yet, from beginning to end, •so far as they relate to my friend A. T. Stewart, the millionaire of New York, they are w : thout foundation and altogether untrue. The fabrication has, on the basis of an identity of surname, raised a structure of romance which it may seem cruel to destroy, and yet it must be' done, for those who permit that which JJis false, to continue to circulate uncontradicted become participators in the original guilt. I very much doubt whether A. T. Stewart ever visited Dumfries in all hia life unless to bend before the shrine of Burns, although he always spoke of his Scottish descent with pride and pleasure. He was born in the north of Ireland. Early in his manhood's life he emigrated to the United States, where; for a few years, he devoted his time to tuition. Having resolved upon spending his vacation in Ireland, and having observed in a windW of one of the stores in William Btreet — for then there were few stores in Broadway — some of the goods for the manufacture of which the neighbourhood of his old home was famous, he procured samples and ascertained the prices at which they were being sold. These samples he duly exhibited to his friends near Belfast, who found that the difference between their own prices and those raised in New lork ww so large, and

the extra profit so immense, that they persuaded young Stewart, the teacher, to take with him a few cases of their produce, and become an amateur trader. He did so, and on his return to the States he naturally invited the firm, from which he had obtained his samples, to examine his goods, which they did, and engaged to take all he could supply of the same class at the same prices for twelve months a-head. He soon found that traffic in linens was more profitable than training boys. When he was among his frieuds — though neither a boaster nor a selfasserting merchant — his blue-grey eyes would twinke with a sense of satisfaction as he related how, when he began business, the room in which he displayed his goods was so small that, standing on the packing cases, which also served as tables or counters, he could with a yard measure, held in his outstretched hand, touch the walls of tho apartment all round ; whilst the whole of his personal stock-in-trade consisted of an inkstand, a few pens, a rickety table, a small desk, a threelegged stool, and a yard stick, the whole of which cost him uader five dollars, or less than one pound sterling. Such were the beginnings of a man who built and occupied premises of marble, and died worth at least fifteen millions of our money. His success was rapid, because he was honest. He laid it down as an an inflexible rule of his business, that if he bought cheap he would sell cheap. Every advantage he obtained in the markets should be shared by his customers. All prices were marked in plain figures, and any deviation on the part ef any employe, was followed by instant dismissal, and it became a saying, ' that a child with a message, could at Stewart's store buy as well as the astutest judge: and would receive as much attention, as the richest lady in the city.' I first knew Mr Stewart about the year 1842, and during ten years from that date our mutual business transactions were immense. In 1848, accompanied by my wife, I crossed the Atlantic with him, and then it was that a song was written, one verse of which, in describing the charcteristies of the passengers, ran—

1 Professors and poets and merchantmen, Whose voyagings never cease ; From shore to shore the wide world o'er Their bonds are the bonds of peace j' the chief merchantman being Mr Stewart. Our intimacy was so close and congenial that were he alive I would not venture to describe the social kindness he exhibited, nor the superb reception he gave in ourhonor lalttßrbeftfitiful house in Bleeker street, where we were introduced to some two or three hundred of the leading merchants in New York, made all the more brilliant by the presence of. their wives and comely daughters. I only name these matters to show that I had the best opportunity afforded me of becoming acquainted with the facts of his early history : for I was one of the few to whom he spoke freely and without disguise. The facts related I had from his own lips, and the best proof of his being a native of Ireland was his unmistakable accent; whilst that of his two favourite cousins, the Misses Morrin, # was delicious. His wife, now his widow, was then in the prime Jof womanhood, and one of the gracefullest and kindliest persons I ever met. Now, bear in mind, this was in 1848, 34 years ago, and yet the writer of the imaginary article states with the utmost precision and coolness, * One third of his colossal fortune went to the la&y whom he married not long before his deaths that lady having prior to her marriage occupied the position of a checker in the Jace department of his most extensive business.' What is meant by a checker I don't know, but I do know that in this instance I am a checker, and the whole story is a scandalous invention. The author of it ought to be ashamed of himself as well as of his production, as he must know that the lady who was so long the delight of Mr Stewart's busy life is still alive, and cannot fail to" be grieved by the perusal of such a tissue of misstatements.