For stationery he used blank backs of letters and envelopes which he carefully and systematically saved and put away. The railroads now controlled by a few men, among whom the large landowners are conspicuous, were surveyed and built to a great extent by public funds, not private money. Unlike the founder of the fortune the present Longworth generation never strays from the set formulas of respectability ; it has intermarried with other rich families : and Nicholas, a namesake and grandson of the original, and a representative in Congress, married in circumstances of great and lavish pomp a daughter of President Roosevelt, thus linking a large fortune, based upon vested interests, with the ruling executive of the day and strategetically combining wealth with direct political power. 2 Prominent Families of New York: 231. This land was once a farm and extended from about what is now Union Square to Forty-seventh street and Fifth avenue. Minutes of the [New York City] Common Council, 1807, xvi:286. Thus, like the Astors and other rich landholders, partly by investments made in trade, and largely by fraud, the Goelets finally became not only great landlords but sharers in the centralized ownership of the countrys transportation systems and industries. Goelet family 0-9 608 Fifth Avenue 900 Broadway C Clinton Roosevelt Clos Du Val Winery Peter T. Curtenius G Elbridge Thomas Gerry Peter G. Gerry Robert L. Gerry Jr. Robert Livingston Gerry Sr. Thomas Russell Gerry Glenmere mansion Alexandra Creel Goelet Mary Goelet Mary Wilson Goelet Ogden Goelet Peter Goelet Robert Goelet Robert Goelet Sr. They allowed themselves a glittering effusion of luxuries which were popularly considered extravagances but which were in nowise so, inasmuch as the cost of them did not represent a tithe of merely the interest on the principal. These brothers had set out with an iron determination to build up the largest fortune they could, and they allowed no obstacles to hinder them. The price they paid was $600 a lot. Robert and Ogden jointly controlled the family fortune of tens of millions of dollars and, beginning in the early 1880's, embarked on an ambitious construction campaign that included the 1883 . Yet now that this bank is one of the richest and most powerful institutions in the United States, and especially as the criminal nature of its origin is unknown except to the historic delver, the Goelets mention the connection of their ancestors with it as a matter of great and just pride. The enormities brazenly committed during the Spanish-American War of 1898 are sufficiently remembered. Of Peter Goelet, a grandson of the original Peter, many stories were current illustrating his close-fistedness. John Jacob Astor of the fourth generation repeats this performance in aligning himself, as does Goelet, with that masterhand Harriman, against whom the most specific charges of colossal looting have been brought.5 But it would be both idle and prejudicial in the highest degree to single out for condemnation a brace of capitalists for following out a line of action so strikingly characteristic of the entire capitalist class a class which, in the pursuit of profits, dismisses nicety of ethics and morals, and which ordains its own laws. It is an indulgence which, however great the superficial consequential money cost may be, is, in reality, inexpensive. Another notable example of this glorifying was Nicholas Biddle, long president of the United States Bank. These lots have a present aggregate value of perhaps $15,000,000 or more, although they are assessed at much less. The basic structure of this was New York City land, but a considerable part was in railroad stocks and bonds, and miscellaneous aggregations of other securities to the purchase of which the surplus revenue had gone. History [ edit] The Goelets are descended from a family of Huguenots from La Rochelle in France, who escaped to Amsterdam. He was born in Conway, Mass., in 1835. Napoleon had the same experience with French contractors, and the testimony of all wars is to the same effect. None who had the appearance of respectable charity seekers could get anything else from him than contemptuous rebuffs. [5][6] His maternal grandparents were George Henry Warren, a prominent lawyer, and Mary (ne Phoenix) Warren (herself the daughter of U.S. Representative Jonas P. Phoenix and granddaughter of Stephen Whitney). Another notable example of this glorifying was Nicholas Biddle, long president of the United States Bank. Unlike the founder of the fortune the present Longworth generation never strays from the set formulas of respectability ; it has intermarried with other rich families : and Nicholas, a namesake and grandson of the original, and a representative in Congress, married in circumstances of great and lavish pomp a daughter of President Roosevelt, thus linking a large fortune, based upon vested interests, with the ruling executive of the day and strategetically combining wealth with direct political power. This remarkable man lived to the age of eighty-one ; when he died in 1863 in a splendid mansion which he had built in the heart of his vineyard, his estate was valued at $15,000,000. The variety of Fields possessions and his numerous forms of ownership were such that we shall have pertinent occasion to deal more relevantly with his career in subsequent parts of this work. By 1830 the population was 24,831 ; twenty years later it had reached 118,761, and in 1860, 171,293 inhabitants. Some other explanation must be found to account for the phenomenal increase of the original small fortune and its unshaken retention. In that day, although but thirty years since, when none but the dazzlingly rich could afford to keep a sumptuous steam yacht in commission the year round, Robert Goelet had a costly yacht, 300 feet long, equipped with all the splendors and comforts which up to that time had been devised for ocean craft. The stock of the Chemical Bank, quoted at a fabulous sum, so to speak, is still held by a small, compact group in which the Goelets are conspicuous. Upon the death of their father Robert R. Goelet (1809-1879) and their bachelor uncle Peter (c.1800-1879), they inherited holdings throughout Manhattan. Robert Goelet Jr., a motion picture producer and heir to a fortune, died of a heart attack June 28 at Good Samaritan Hospital in West Palm Beach, Fla. The balance represents the investments of private individuals. Its mate followed. Certainly he was a very unique type of millionaire, much akin to Stephen Girard. The landed property of the Goelet family on Manhattan Island alone is estimated at fully $200,000,000. Field was the son of a farmer. We have seen how John Jacob Astor of the third generation very eagerly in 1867 invited Cornelius Vanderbilt to take over the management of the New York Central Railroad, after Vanderbilt had proved himself not less an able executive than an indefatigable and effective briber and corrupter. From the frauds of this bank the Goelets reaped large profits which systematically were invested in New York City real estate. As population increased and the downtown sections were converted into business sections, the fashionables shifted their quarters from time to time, always pushing uptown, until the Goelet lands became a long sweep of ostentatious mansions. The executors of Fields will placed the value of his real estate in Chicago at $30,000,000. Land acquired by political or commercial fraud has been made the lever for the commission of other frauds. A surfeit of money brings power, but it does not carry with it a recognized position among a titled aristocracy. He never tired of doing this, and was petulantly impatient when houses enough were not added to his inventory. There were only a few millionaires in the United States, and still fewer multimillionaires. Parts of his land and other possessions he bought with the profits from his business ; other portions, as has been brought out, he obtained from corrupt city administrations. Ogden Goelet (June 11, 1851 New York City - August 27, 1897 Cowes, Isle of Wight) was an American heir, businessman and yachtsman from New York City during the Gilded Age. Chancing in upon him one could see him intently pouring over a list of his properties. He was a lover of fancy fowls and of animals. Peter the Younger quickly gravitated into the profitable and fashionable business of the day the banking business, with its succession of frauds, many of which have been described in the preceding chapters. In this podcast series we dive into the long and shadowy history of America's ruling elite through the works of authors who were either silenced, suppressed, or forgotten, to discover the origins of the 1% and from where their power and wealth was, and still is, extracted. Cincinnati, with its population of 325,902,7 pays incessant tribute in the form of a vast rent roll to the scions of the man whose main occupation was to hold on to the land he had got for almost nothing. And progressively their rentals from this land increased. His family is the majority owner of the Washington Nationals. These various factors were intertwined ; the profits from one line of property were used in buying up other forms and thus on, reversely and comminglingly. tracts at a time of distress. The grant consisted of what are now many blocks along Broadway north of Lispenard street. The Rhinelanders, also, employ their great surplus revenues in constantly buying more land. Little research is necessary to shatter this error. Another large tract of New York City real estate came into their possession through the marriage of William C. Rhinelander, of the third generation, to His uncle, Ogden Goelet, was the builder of Ochre Court and his two first cousins were Robert Wilson Goelet, the original owner of Glenmere mansion,[4] and Mary Goelet, the wife of Henry Innes-Ker, 8th Duke of Roxburghe. Subsequently the firm became Field, Leiter & Co., and, finally in 1887, Marshall Field & Co.10 The firm conducted both a wholesale and retail business on what is called in commercial slang a cash basis: that is, it sold goods on immediate payment and not on credit. When fraud was necessary they, like the bulk of their class, unhesitatingly used it. From the frauds of this bank the Goelets reaped large profits which systematically were invested in New York City real estate. Then after the beggar left, Longworth sent a boy to the nearest shoe store, with instructions to get a pair of shoes, but in no circumstances to pay more than a dollar and a half. His two sons continued the business of ship chandlers ; one of them Peter the Younger was especially active in extending his real estate possessions, both by corrupt favors of the city officials and by purchase. Graduate of Columbia and Its Law School, but Never Had Practiced. His land lay in the very center of the expanding city, in the busiest part of the business section and in the best portion of the residential districts. This land was once a farm and extended from about what is now Union Square to Forty-seventh street and Fifth avenue. On one occasion a beggar called at Longworths office and pointed eloquently at his gaping shoes. In turn these rents have incessantly gone toward buying up railroads, factories, utility plants and always more and more land. The founding and aggrandizement of other great private fortunes from land were accompanied by methods closely resembling, or identical with, those that the Astors employed. 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. [11], Upon the death of his mother in 1915, he inherited a fortune estimated to be $40 million (equivalent to $780million in 2021),[2] which included 591 Fifth Avenue (a brownstone built in 1880 by Edward H. Kendall at the southeast corner of 48th Street) and her estate at Ochre Point in Newport, Rhode Island, designed by Stanford White and built between 1882 and 1884 and known as "Southside". In turn these rents have incessantly gone toward buying up railroads, factories, utility plants and always more and more land. The case looked black. The arrangement becomes easy. It is entirely needless to iterate the narrative of how the city officials corruptly gave over to these men land and water grants before that time municipally owned grants now having a present incalculable value.1. While the Astors, the Goelets, the Rhinelanders and others, or rather the entire number of inhabitants, were transmuting their land into vast and increasing wealth expressed in terms of hundreds of millions in money, Nicholas Longworth was aggrandizing himself likewise in Cincinnati. This estimate did not include $8,000,000 worth of land which the executors reported that he owned in New York City, nor the millions of dollars of his land possessions elsewhere. He was. GUESTIER; Rich New Yorker Married to Daughter of Bordeaux Landowner by a Civil Ceremony", "TROTH ANNOUNCED OFF MISS FANNER; She Will Be Married to John Goelet, Who Was Graduated From Harvard in '53", "Paid Notice: Deaths MANICE, BEATRICE GOELET", "BEATRICE GOELET, H. F. MANICE MARRY; Daughter of Late Robert W. Goelet Married to Former Lieutenant in the Navy", "Goelet, Robert G. (Robert Guestier), 1924- - Biodiversity Heritage Library", "Goelet, Robert G. (Robert Guestier), 1924-", "Chemical Bank & Trust Chooses a New Director", "Francis Goelet, Philanthropist And Music Lover, 72, Is Dead", "Robert Walton Goelet's 'Southside' Estate, Newport, RI: Robert Yarnall Richie Photograph Collection", DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University, Robert Walton Goelet's 'Southside' Estate, Newport, RI, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Robert_Walton_Goelet&oldid=1033905769. In exchange, Longworth received thirty-three acres of what was then considered unpromising land in the town.6 From time to time he bought more land with the money made in law ; this land lay on what were then the outskirts of the place. What set of men do we find now in control of this railroad, doing with it as they please ? [2], In 1908, he purchased the 10,000 acres (4,000ha) Sandricourt estate, the former residence of the Marquis de Beauvoir, on the outskirts of Paris. [15] The estate, where he spent much of his time, which he purchased for $300,000, had 139 buildings, grain fields and herds of cattle. Younger brother Ogden married Mary R. Wilson [Mary R. Goelet] in 1878 and had two children, Mary "May" Wilson Goelet [Mary W. Goelet] (1879?-1937) and Robert Goelet (1880-1966). What set of men do we find now in control of this railroad, doing with it as they please ? Peter P. Goelet was for several years one of the directors of the Bank of New York, and both brothers benefited by the corrupt control of the United States Bank, and were principals among the founders of the Chemical Bank. The great impetus to the sudden increase of their fortune came in the period 1850-1870, through a tract of land which they owned in what had formerly been the outskirts of the city. His grandfather, Jacobus Goelet, was, as a boy and young man, brought up by Frederick Phillips, with whose career as a promoter and backer of pirates and piracies, and as a briber of royal officials under British rule, we have dealt in previous chapters. Since the full and itemized details of these transactions have been elaborated upon in previous chapters, it is hardly necessary to repeat them. Some other explanation must be found to account for the phenomenal increase of the original small fortune and its unshaken retention. PODCAST: Why Cristiano Ronaldo Is The World's Highest-Earning Athlete; 2017 Grateful Grads Index: Top 200 Best-Loved Colleges; Full List: The World's Highest-Paid Actors And Actresses 2017 [26], In 1958, in Goelet's honor, his widow and four children donated $500,000 toward the construction of the Metropolitan Opera's new home at Lincoln Center, where the grand staircase bears a plaque with his name. John Jacob Astor of the fourth generation repeats this performance in aligning himself, as does Goelet, with that masterhand Harriman, against whom the most specific charges of colossal looting have been brought.5 But it would be both idle and prejudicial in the highest degree to single out for condemnation a brace of capitalists for following out a line of action so strikingly characteristic of the entire capitalist class a class which, in the pursuit of profits, dismisses nicety of ethics and morals, and which ordains its own laws. On one occasion a beggar called at Longworths office and pointed eloquently at his gaping shoes. That they conducted their business in the accepted methods of the day and exercised great astuteness and frugality, is true enough, but so did a host of other merchants whose descendants are even now living in poverty. The great impetus to the sudden increase of their fortune came in the period 1850-1870, through a tract of land which they owned in what had formerly been the outskirts of the city. The founder of the Goelet fortune was Peter Goelet, an ironmonger during and succeeding the Revolution. He was plain and careless in his dress, looking more a beggar than a millionaire.. 2 Prominent Families of New York: 231. Goelet, it seems, was allowed to pay in installments. We shall advert to some of the great fortunes in the West based wholly or largely upon city real estate. There is good reason to believe that alongside of his one personality, that of a rapacious miser, there lived another personality, that of a philosopher. That they conducted their business in the accepted methods of the day and exercised great astuteness and frugality, is true enough, but so did a host of other merchants whose descendants are even now living in poverty. Another large tract of New York City real estate came into their possession through the marriage of William C. Rhinelander, of the third generation, to 5 See Part III, Great Fortunes From Railroads.. The executors of Fields will placed the value of his real estate in Chicago at $30,000,000. He died in 1879 aged seventy-nine years ; and within a few months, his brother Robert, who was as much of an eccentric and miser in his way, passed away in his seventieth year. The Goelet fortune was estimated to be around $50 million and it was principally maintained by brother Ogden and Robert Goelet. He was born in Conway, Mass., in 1835. The story of how Longworth became a landowner is given by Houghton as follows : His first client was a man accused of horse stealing. With his wife, he built Ochre Court in Newport, Rhode Island, his son built Glenmere mansion, and his daughter, Mary Goelet, married Henry Innes-Ker, 8th Duke of Roxburghe . The principal landowner in this one section, not to mention other sections of that immense city, was Marshall Field, with $11,000,000 worth of land ; the next was Leiter, who owned in that section land valued at $10,500,000.8 It appeared from this report that eighteen persons owned $65,000,000 of this $319,000,000 worth of land, and that eighty-eight persons owned $136,000,000 worth or one-half of the entire business center of Chicago. Next to the Astors estate the Goelet landed possessions are perhaps the largest urban estates in the United States in value. The landed property of the Goelet family on Manhattan Island alone is estimated at fully $200,000,000. It was through this property that the Goelet family accumulated their vast real estate empire in Manhattan, second only to the Astors. The fortunes of the brothers descended to Roberts two sons, Robert, born in 1841, and Ogden, born in 1846. In those frontier days, a horse represented one of the most valuable forms of property ; and, as under a system wherein human life was inconsequential compared to the preservation of property, the penalty for stealing a horse was usually death. Father of Robert Goelet. Storks, pheasants and peacocks could be seen in the grounds about his house, and also numbers of guinea pigs. Madison StanleyDr. His house at Nineteenth street, corner of Broadway, was a curiosity shop. For a Western city this was a very considerable population for the period. In the basement he had a forge, and there were tools of all kinds over which he labored, while upstairs he had a law library of 10,000 volumes, for it was a fixed, cynical determination of his never to pay a lawyer for advice that he could himself get for the reading. Yet the court records show that, after a career of bribery, he stole $400,000 of that banks funds. Peter P. Goelet was for several years one of the directors of the Bank of New York, and both brothers benefited by the corrupt control of the United States Bank, and were principals among the founders of the Chemical Bank. [16], He inherited vast real estate holdings in New York, sometimes known as the Goelet Realty Company, which included the Ritz-Carlton Hotel and the property between 52nd and 53rd Streets on Park Avenue which the Racquet and Tennis Club leased.
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