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The ancestors of some of the most conspicuous multimillionaire families of the present were deeply involved in the perpetration of all of those continuous frauds and crimes Peter Goelet and his sons, Peter P. and Robert, for instance, and Jacob Lorillard, who, for many years, was president of the Mechanics' Bank. No stigma attached to these wealth-graspers.
It is in the large cities that the great land fortunes are to be found. The greatest of these fortunes are the Astor, Goelet and Rhinelander estates in the East and, in the West, the Longworth and Field estates are notable examples. To deal with all the conspicuous fortunes based upon land would necessitate an interminable narrative.
In the course of this work it has already been shown in specific detail how Peter Goelet in conjunction with John Jacob Astor, the Rhinelander brothers, the Schermerhorns, the Lorillards and other founders of multimillionaire dynasties, fraudulently secured great tracts of land, during the early and middle parts of the last century, in either what was then, or what is now, in the heart of New York City.
Long before Vanderbilt and other of his contemporaries had plucked immense fortunes from steamboat, railroad and street railway enterprises, the Astor, Goelet, and Longworth fortunes were counted in the millions.
Between Forty-fifth and Forty-sixth, Nos. 555 and 559, respectively, are the residences of Mrs. James R. Jessup and Mrs. John H. Hall. At the north-east corner of Forty-seventh Street is the home of Mrs. Finley J. Shepard, formerly Miss Helen Gould. Between Forty-seventh and Forty-eighth live Captain W.C. Beach , Mrs. James B. Haggin , Mrs. Robert W. Goelet , Mrs. Russell Sage , Mrs.
Armour and Cudahy and Swift made the packing business; Marshall Field built up a business in Chicago rivalling Wanamaker's; August Belmont, William C. Whitney, Levi Leiter, Robert Goelet, Pierre Lorillard, and a hundred others, amassed great fortunes. Yet there was nothing in their career different to those of the men already considered in this chapter. They had a genius for money-making.
Goelet for the Whitehall and Exchange Piers." "Prominent Families of New York":231. Another notable example of this glorifying was Nicholas Biddle, long president of the United States Bank. Yet the court records show that, after a career of bribery, he stole $400,000 of that bank's funds. At this very time his wealth, judged by the standard of the times, was prodigious.
On Dec. 27, 1865, William C. Rhinelander was presented with a grant of land under water from Ninety-first to Ninety-fourth street, East River. On March 21, 1867, Peter Goelet obtained from the Sinking Fund Commissioners a grant of land under water on the East River in front of land owned by him between Eighty-first street and Eighty-second street.
In marrying the Duke of Roxburghe in 1903, May Goelet, the daughter of Ogden, was but following the example set by a large number of other American women of multimillionaire families. It is an indulgence which, however great the superficial consequential money cost may be, is, in reality, inexpensive.
So long as Vanderbilt produced the profits, Astor and his fellow-directors did not care what means he used, however criminal in law and whatever their turpitude in morals. John Jacob Astor of the fourth generation repeats this performance in aligning himself, as does Goelet, with that master-hand Harriman, against whom the most specific charges of colossal looting have been brought.
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