To go back, however: In 1767 Trinity Church leased to Abraham Mortier, for ninety-nine years, at a total annual rental of $269 a year, a stretch of land comprising 465 lots in what is now the vicinity bounded by Greenwich, Spring and Hudson streets. Mortier used it as a country place until 1797 when the New York Legislature, upon the initiative of Burr, developed a consuming curiosity as to how Trinity Church was expending its income. This was a very ticklish question with the pious vestrymen of Trinity, as it was generally suspected that they were commingling business and piety in a way that might, if known, cause them some trouble. The law, at that time, restricted the annual income of Trinity Church from its property to $12,000 a year. A committee of investigation was appointed; of this committee Burr was made chairman.
HOW ASTOR SECURED A LEASE.
Burr never really made any investigation. Why? The reason soon came out, when Burr turned up with a transfer of the Mortier lease to himself. He at once obtained from the Manhattan Bank a $38,000 loan, pledging the lease as security. When his duel with Hamilton forced Burr to flee the country, Astor promptly came along and took the lease off his hands. Astor, it was said, paid him $32,000 for it, subject to the Manhattan Bank's mortgage. At any rate, Astor now held this extraordinarily valuable lease.8 He immediately released it in lots; and as the city fast grew, covering the whole stretch with population and buildings, the lease was a source of great revenue to him and to his heirs.9 As a Lutheran, Astor could not be a vestryman of Trinity Church. Anthony Lispenard, however, it may be passingly noted, was a vestryman, and, as such, mixed piety and business so well, that his heirs became possessed of millions of dollars by the mere fact that in 1779, when a vestryman, he got a lease, for eighty-three years of eighty-one Trinity lots adjacent to the Astor leased land, at a total annual rental of $177.50.10