ey were also numbered among the founders of that famous New York
financial institution, the Chemical Bank."[163] Thus do the crimes of
one generation become transformed into the glories of another! 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.

From the frauds of this bank the Goelets reaped large profits which
systematically were invested in New York City real estate. And
progressively their rentals from this land increased. Their policy was
much the same as that of the Astors--constantly increasing their land
possessions. This they could easily do for two reasons. One was that
almost consecutively they, along with other landholders, corrupted city
governments to give them successive grants, and the other was their
enormous surplus revenue which kept piling up.

ONCE A FARM; NOW OF VAST VALUE.

When William B. Astor inherited in 1846 the greater part of his father's
fortune, the Goelet brothers had attained what was then the exalted rank
of being millionaires, although their fortune was only a fraction of
that of Astor. 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. This land was once
a farm and extended from about what is now Union Square to Forty-seventh
street and Fifth avenue. It embraced a long section of Broadway--a
section now covered with huge hotels, business buildings, stores and
theaters. It also includes blocks upon blocks filled with residences and
aristocratic mansions. At first the fringe of New York City, then part
of its suburbs, this tract lay in a region which from 1850 on began to
take on great values, and which was in great demand for the homes of the
rich. By 1879 it was a central part of the city and brought high
rentals. The same combination of economic influences and pressure which
so vastly increased the value of the Astors' land, operated to turn this
quondam farm into city lots worth enormous sums. 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.

In imitation of the Astors the Goelets steadily adhered, as they have
since, to the policy of seldom or never selling an