THE ORIGIN OF HUGE CITY ESTATES
In point of succession and importance the next great fortunes came from ownership of land in the cities. They far preceded fortunes from established industries or from the control of modern methods of transportation. Long before Vanderbilt and other of his contemporaries had plucked immense fortunes from steamboat, railroad and street railway enterprises, the Astor, Goelet, and Longworth fortunes were counted in the millions. In the seventy years from 1800 the landowners were the conspicuous fortune possessors; and, although fortunes of millions were extracted from various other lines of business, the land fortunes were preëminent.
At the dawn of the nineteenth century and until about 1850, survivals of the old patroon estates were to be met with. But these gradually disintegrated. Everywhere in the North the tendency was toward the partition of the land into small farms, while in the South the condition was the reverse. The main fact which stood out was that the rich men of the country were no longer those who owned vast tracts of rural land. That powerful kind of landowner had well-nigh vanished.
THE MANORIAL LORDS PASS AWAY.
For more than two centuries the manorial lords had been conspicuous functionaries. Shorn of much power by the alterations of the Revolution they still retained a part of their state and estate. But changing laws and economic conditions drove them down and down in the scale until the very names of many of them were gradually lost sight of. As they descended in the swirl, other classes of rich men jutted into strong view.