CHAPTER XX.

One of our largest merchants after the war was John Roiz Silva. In 1786, he kept at No. 1 Beekman street. He was evidently a Portuguese. He sold large lots of 50 to 100 bales of Carthagena cotton at a time.

He was also engaged in the Madeira and Cape de Verde Islands trade, and sold immense quantities of Madeira wine. He also received by a little schooner that he owned, the "General Washington," cow hides and goat skins in quantities.

He sold Holland gin in cases, and tobacco. He was a large indigo dealer.

He constantly received cargoes of Turks Island salt ; and whenever the famous ship "Notre Senora de Patrosimo" came to this port, she was consigned to Mr. Silva. She brought cargoes of Mediterranean produce, sweet oil in barrels, white wine vinegar, almonds, drugs, and figs in frails.

Every few months he received a cargo of white and red port wine, direct from Oporto, of the vintages of 1781 and '82. His place of business was on Cruger's wharf, corner of Old slip. He did a large business for

many years.

About 1795, there was a very fascinating New York widow named Anna Dumont. Her husband was a

brother of old Doctor Peter Dumont, who kept a drug store at 25 Little Dock street. The fair widow, Anna, lived at No 12, and there the Senor courted her. He was a successful suitor, and the fair widow surrendered. She not only consented to become Mrs. Anna Silva, but as he was a Catholic, agreed to give up her own. faith. So on the 20th February, 1795, they were married in St. Peter's Catholic Church (old one, but where the present one stands), in Barclay street, corner of Church, by the Rev. Doctor O'Brien, who was pastor of St. Peter's. After the ceremony he conveyed his bride to a magnificent residence he had fitted up at No. 9 Beaver street.

He afterwards moved his residence to 28 William street, and kept his store at 79 Front. He was doing a magnificent business, and would have become one of the richest merchants in any country, but in the year 1798 his career was cut short by the yellow fever, that used in those days to ravage New York every few years He was buried from 28 William street. His funeral was

Catholics and all

a hurried one, but attended by th of the foreigners. Most every one had gone to the country, and those who had seats, to their country seats. It is a singular fact that as far back as seventy years ago, 1793 to 1830, every merchant was anxious to have a country seat (a place a few miles out of the then city below Chamber street.) It was a good old custom for merchants to live over their stores and places of business. Many suppose that to have a place in the city, and a place to which they could resort out of it in the summer months, was the motive of the merchants. It was not so. It was to get rid of yellow fever that in 1793

committed dreadful ravages in the city - again in 1797, 1798, 1803, and 1822. The country seat seemed a sort of Home of Refuge, and the feeling did not subside until seven years after, 1822 fever, when property became valuable in every part of this island. It was fashionable to have a country seat. There was safety in it, and it did not cost much. The price of a house, cottage, stables, &c., and a few acres of ground, varied from $3,000 to $9,000. Many such places with 100 acres of land and from home not five miles from Trinity steeple, sold for inside of $9,000. Of course such merchants or their heirs as held such country seats a few years, or until 1830, became possessors of vast wealth.

I now return to Jose Rosa Silva. Notwithstanding his immense business, it did not settle up very well. The widow Anna waited with patience for three years, until his affairs were closed up, and then she found she had furniture and lots of acquaintance, but no friends. So she started a boarding house at No. 132 Greenwich street in 1802. What a blessed heavenly gift it is that a stricken widow has this to fall back upon, and keep respectable and be able to get food for herself and little ones, by furnishing food and lodging to others. Merchants when they fail cannot fall back upon a boardinghouse they can die in the almhouse; for the rich merchants of New York, those that luxuriate in prosperity, defy God, and say we can't fail, and so they make no provision for such a calamity. As I have often said, the vilest and most degraded of all classes, sexes, and colors, have homes or asylums provided. The only one who has not an asylum is the noble old merchants who have built up the commercial greatness

of the city. Blackwell's Island poorhouse, where many old merchants are now lingering out an existence, is the only "Asylum " until they get a pine box and a pauper's grave. It is not so with the widow of the merchant who becomes poor. She then starts a boardinghouse and, oh! how many lovely heads they have covered — how many daughters have been saved from the and the consequence of poverty and how pangs many helpless boys has an energetic widow mother been able to bring up to be good wives and mothers, and good, prosperous merchants. Those who rail out at a boarding-house should look behind the curtain, and see what blessings have flowed from them. Oh! could the history of 10,000 boarding-houses started and maintained by such helpless widows since sixty years ago widow Anna Silva started hers at 132 Greenwich street. She gave it up in 1807. What become of her afterwards I never knew. There were children by her first husband Dumont, as well as by the second, Silva, but what became of them I do not know. There are many of the name of Silva in the city now. Some of them are merchants. I often wonder whether they are descended from my grand old merchant Jose Rosa de Silva. If there are any such, I should like to know the fact.

At the time Mr. Silva died, in August, 1798, his principal clerk was Thomas T. Gaston. He afterwards became bookkeeper for many houses, and died in 1804. His widow, too, had to fall back upon a boarding-house to bring up her children. She kept in Pearl street for many years, and will be remembered well by many who are now living.

In March, 1799, Thomas T. Gaston married Miss Elizabeth Ludlow, of this city.

Page 113, in Volume I, of " Old Merchants," I had a sketch of Hicks, Lawrence & Co., the great auction house. I find I made a mistake in saying that Joseph Lawrence quit it, after Cornelius W. Lawrence did. I should have stated that he quitted it before, and joined the house of Alley & Trimble, making the firm Alley, Lawrence & Trimble, afterwards Lawrence & Trimble still later Lawrence, Trimble & Co.; then Lawrence, Clapp & Co., and again Lawrence, Woodward & Co.

Cornelius W. Lawrence afterward retired from the firm of Hicks, Lawrence & Co., with so much popularity that his fellow-merchants invited him to a public dinner, which he had the good sense to decline. Then he became Mayor, Member of Congress, President of the Bank of the State of New York, and Collector of the Port. When he left the house, the partners in Hicks, Lawrence & Co., were old Willet Hicks, Richard Lawrence and Algernon Sidney Chase, the latter gentleman being at present a partner in the respectable firm of Rice, Chase & Co., of Baltimore and New York. These were the partners when, as I wrote, the firm went to smash in 1837.

The breaking of the old firm about used up old Willet Hicks, and stopped his usefulness as a Quaker preacher, in which capacity he was very widely known by his travels in Great Britain and this country. He was a fine, portly, dignified man; dressed well, and travelled in his own equipage with his own servants. He spoke often and fluently. He was called the Bishop of the