was not unexpected by him. It had
always been his habit to watch the market closely, in order to profit by
any sudden change in it, and his keen sagacity enabled him to foresee the
approach of the storm and to prepare for it. He marked his goods down at
an early day and began to "sell for cost," conducting his operations on a
strictly cash basis. The prices were very low, the goods of the best
quality, and he found no difficulty in obtaining purchasers. People were
glad to save money by availing themselves of his low prices. In the
midst of the most terrible crisis the country had ever seen, when old and
established houses were breaking all around him, he was carrying on a
thriving business. His cash sales averaged five thousand dollars per
day. Other houses, to save themselves, were obliged to sell their goods
at auction. Thither went Stewart regularly. He bought these goods for
cash, and sold them over his counters at an average profit of forty per
cent. On a lot of silks for which he paid fifty thousand dollars he
cleared twenty thousand dollars in a few days. He came out of the crisis
a rich man and the leading dry-goods dealer of New York.

A few years later he purchased the property lying on the east side of
Broadway, between Chambers and Reade streets, on which he built a
magnificent marble store. He moved into it in 1846. His friends
declared that he had made a mistake in erecting such a costly edifice,
and that he had located it on the wrong side of Broadway. Besides, he
was too far up town. He listened to them patiently, and told them that
in a short time they would see his new store the centre of the
fashionable retail trade of the city. His prediction was speedily
fulfilled.

A few years ago, finding that the retail trade was deserting its old
haunts, below Canal street, and going up town, be began the erection of
his present retail store, into which he moved as soon as it was
completed, retaining his lower store for his wholesale business.

During the war, he made large profits from his sales to the Government,
though he exhibited genuine patriotism in these dealings by charging only
the most liberal prices for his goods. The gains thus realized by him
more than counterbalanced the losses he sustained by the sudden cessation
of his trade with the South.

Fifty-four years have now elapsed since he first set foot in New York,
poor and unknown, and to-day Mr. Stewart is the possessor of a