Chapter 3

ALEXANDER T. STEWART.

Birth and early life--Becomes his grandfather's ward--Designed for the ministry--A change in his plans--Comes to America--Teaches school in New York--Becomes a dry goods merchant--Receives a legacy--His first importation--How he began business--An energetic trader--His sample lots and their history--Success of his enterprise--He begins by encouraging honesty in trade--Wins a name for reliability--The system of selling at one price--Inaugurates the "selling off at cost" feature--His courage in business--How he raised the money to meet his note--Improvement in his business--He enlarges his store--As an inducement to the ladies, employs for clerks handsome young men--The crisis of 1837--Stewart comes out of it a rich man--How he did so--Builds his lower store--Predictions of failure--The result--Compels the Government to purchase goods from him--His foresight and liberality--Charged with superstition--Lucky and unlucky persons--Story of the old apple woman--Remarks at the opening of the St. Nicholas Hotel--Reasons of Stewart's success--A hard worker--How he receives visitors--Running the gauntlet--How he gets rid of troublesome persons--Estimate of Mr. Stewart's real estate in New York--His new residence--His benevolence--Aid for Ireland, and free passages to America--Home for women--Political sentiments--Mr. Stewart's appointment as Secretary of the Treasury--Feeling of the country--The retail store of A.T. Stewart & Co.--A palace of glass and iron--Internal arrangements--The managers and salesmen--List of sales--Wages given--Visitors--The principal salesroom--The parcel department--The wagons and stables--Extravagant purchases--Mr. Stewart's supervision of the upper store--The system of buying--The foreign agencies--Statement of the duties paid each day--Personal appearance of Mr. Stewart.