or Cosby the gift of what was then called
the "Fresh Water Pond and Swamp"--a stretch of seventy acres of little
value at the time, but which is now covered with busy streets and large
commercial and office buildings. What the circumstances were that
attended this grant are not now known. The grant consisted of what are
now many blocks along Broadway north of Lispenard street. It is not
merely business sections which the Rhinelander family owns, however;
they derive stupendous rentals from a vast number of tenement houses.

The Rhinelanders, also, employ their great surplus revenues in
constantly buying more land. With true aristocratic aspirations, they
have not been satisfied with mere plebeian American mansions, gorgeous
palaces though they be; they set out to find a European palace with
warranted royal associations, and found one in the famous castle of
Schonberg, on the Rhine, near Oberwesel, which they bought and where
they have ensconced themselves. How great the wealth of this family is
may be judged from the fact that one of the Rhinelanders--William--left
an estate valued at $50,000,000 at his death in December, 1907.

THE SCHERMERHORNS.

The factors entering into the building up of the Schermerhorn fortune
were almost identical with those of the Astor, the Goelet and the
Rhinelander fortunes. The founder, Peter Schermerhorn, was a ship
chandler during the Revolution. 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. 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. One tract of land, extending from Third avenue to the East
River and from Sixty-fourth to Seventy-fifth street, which he secured in
the early part of the nineteenth century, became worth a colossal
fortune in itself. It is now covered with stores, buildings and densely
populated tenement houses. "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. He was a director of the Bank of
New York from 1814 until his death in 1852.

It seems quite superfluous to enlarge further upon the origin of the
great landed