America--Teaches school in New
York--Becomes a dry goods merchant--Receives a legacy--His first
importation--How he began business--An energetic trader--His sample lots
and their history--Success of his enterprise--He begins by encouraging
honesty in trade--Wins a name for reliability--The system of selling at
one price--Inaugurates the "selling off at cost" feature--His courage in
business--How he raised the money to meet his note--Improvement in his
business--He enlarges his store--As an inducement to the ladies, employs
for clerks handsome young men--The crisis of 1837--Stewart comes out of
it a rich man--How he did so--Builds his lower store--Predictions of
failure--The result--Compels the Government to purchase goods from
him--His foresight and liberality--Charged with superstition--Lucky and
unlucky persons--Story of the old apple woman--Remarks at the opening of
the St. Nicholas Hotel--Reasons of Stewart's success--A hard worker--How
he receives visitors--Running the gauntlet--How he gets rid of
troublesome persons--Estimate of Mr. Stewart's real estate in New
York--His new residence--His benevolence--Aid for Ireland, and free
passages to America--Home for women--Political sentiments--Mr. Stewart's
appointment as Secretary of the Treasury--Feeling of the country--The
retail store of A.T. Stewart & Co.--A palace of glass and iron--Internal
arrangements--The managers and salesmen--List of sales--Wages
given--Visitors--The principal salesroom--The parcel department--The
wagons and stables--Extravagant purchases--Mr. Stewart's supervision of
the upper store--The system of buying--The foreign agencies--Statement
of the duties paid each day--Personal appearance of Mr. Stewart.

CHAPTER IV.

AMOS LAWRENCE.

The Lawrence family--A poor boy--Early education--Delicate
health--Obtains a situation at Dunstable--Returns to Groton--Becomes Mr.
Brazer's apprentice--The variety store--An amateur doctor--Importance of
Groton in "old times"--Responsibility of young Lawrence--Is put in
charge of the business--High character--Drunkenness the curse of New
England--Lawrence resolves to abstain from liquors and tobacco--His
self-command--Completes his apprenticeship--Visits Boston--An unexpected
offer--Enters into business in Boston--Is offered a partnership, but
declines it--His sagacity justified--Begins business for
himself--Commercial importance of Boston--Aid from his father--A narrow
escape--lesson for life--Amos Lawrence's