Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 February 1881 — A. T. Stewart. [ARTICLE]

A. T. Stewart.

I was talking with a gentleman who had been an intimate friend of A. T. Stewart, the greatest merchant perhaps that this country ever knew, and he threw new light on his history. Contrary to general belief, Stewart started with a comfortable fortune, and did not work his way from the ground up. He came to this country as a young man, sent on a pleasure trip by his father. He was a close observer and leisurely traveler, and went home thoroughly posted as to this country. Having to return to America very soon, he recalled the fact that there was a tine margin of profit between the prices of laces in the old country and this. He, therefore, invested $25,000, his patrimony, in laces and brought them over on his second trip. This speculation turned qpt so well that he had another lot sent over, and opened a shop from which he might dispose of them. This was the beginning of his mercantile business. Stewart was a man of confirmed superstitions. He would never eat at a table at which thirteen people were seated, and on one occasion, when a guest had declined coming to his usual Sunday night dining and afterward came when his place had been filled, he declined to receive him as he made the number thirteen. He finally determined to overcome this superstition, and dined at a table at which thirteen were seated. He died a few weeks afterward, but I very much doubt it that was what killed him. He never wanted to have his photograph taken, saying : “ People who buy goods from me think I am a noUIe-looking man with flowing whiskers and a gray beard. They’d lose faith in my prestige if they became familiar with my insignificant face.” He was a shopkeeper all his life, and the shopkeeping instinct never left him. He once dropped into Tiffany’s and saw a friend examining some pearls that he was thinking of buying for his wife. Stewart caught hold of him and hurried him out before he had time to close the trade. Once down stairs he got him into his coupe, and insisted on his going to his store with him. He hurried him up-stairs to the lace department, took out an especial pattern and said: “ Now, that’s what you want to buy for your wife I ” and he sold it to him. At this very time Stewart was worth millions, and would have given the friend he had cajoled into buying, twenty times the price of the lace, but the selling instinct was stronger in him than anything else. I learned from my informant that Stewart’s body had never been recovered. Judge Hilton could have had it at almost any time, provided he would have paid the required ransom. He refused to do this, however, on the ground that if he did so the business of grave-n bbing, having proved profitable, would have become popular among thieves.— 2Vew York letter.