BIOGRAPHY: Stephen B. Munn; New York co., NY
surname: Munn, Marshall, Glover, Pierce, Cornell

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Author: Walter Barrett

STEPHEN B. MUNN
Page 20
"The Old Merchants"
By Walter Barrett, Clerk
Pub:Thomas R. Knox and Co. 1885 NY

Stephen B. Munn will be recollected by many in this generation. He lived in 
Broadway, No. 503- on the same block where the St. Nicholas Hotel now stands 
as late as 1856. He died in that year.

Stephen B. Munn was a Connecticut boy. He lived and worked upon a farm until 
he was 17 years old, and then he went into the tin peddling business, as 
thousands of others have done, and made their first step on the road to 
fortune.  A tin peddler is a traveling merchant. He generally connects himself 
with a "tinner" who also has a store to supply his "peddlers".  The peddler 
first secures a horse and a tin-peddler covered wagon.  These goods are 
peddled out by the "tinmen" who calculate to make a large profit.

Stephen B. Munn, was born in the northern part of Connecticut. He reached this 
city in 1794 and commenced operations upon a small scale at 100 Maiden Lane.  
He afterwards removed to 103 Maiden Lane, between Gold and Pearl Streets. His 
stock was principally dry goods, but he kept an assorted stock of goods--a 
sort of peddler's wagon stock, too, on a large scale.

Notwithstanding his small capital, young Munn worked wonders with it. He 
attended auctions of every kind and bought for cash. He was never successful 
in buying goods at private sale. He always said so. Probably his knowledge of 
dry goods, acquired in his peddling operations, was very superficial, and he 
was taken advantage of at private sale, which he could not be at auction, 
where he used the sagacity of shrewd buyers, and duplicate their purchases. 
However that may have been, it is evident that Mr. Munn coined money up to 
(the year)1800 for then he was able to buy the store No. 226 Pearl Street 
(near where Platt Street has since been opened in).  He bought this place, and 
occupied the lower floor as a store and lived in the upper part with his 
family.  It was his store until 1821--and his residence also until the war of 
1813; that year he moved into Broadway and in 1823 he moved his family into 
the handsome house he had built at No. 503 Broadway, where he died. 

Property in Pearl Street, in 1800, could not have been worth a great sum. The 
rent of a three-story house and store beneath did not exceed $400 and the cost 
of the building and lot, 25 x 100 was not over $4,000.  In 1800 the taxes were 
comparatively nothing. There was no water rent. People swept the streets. The 
lamp-lighters used the oil given them for street lamps and did not use dirty, 
cheap oil.

After S.B. Munn got established in Pearl Street, be became a very bold 
operator and bought largely.  During the war, or rather towards its close, he 
had filled his store with goods at war prices. He had bought "invoices" of 
goods at a fabulous percentage. When War closed and peace was declared, he was 
one of the largest holders and evidently destined to be ruined.  Not so. He 
was an exceedingly shrewd man and he at once concentrated all his energies to 
aid him in disposing of his high cost merchandise and large stock, with as 
little loss as possible.  One of the plans to which he resorted, was to 
exchange his merchandise for soldiers' land warrants. He was about the only 
man in the city who had pluck enough to make the exchange, as the warrants at 
that time were deemed of very little value; but Mr. Munn believed that no 
species of property could be worth less than his dry goods at war prices.  By 
pursuing this course, he reduced his stock very materially, and he also 
accumulated a large amount of land warrants. But even this shrewd scheme 
barely saved him form bankruptcy. He weathered the storm, and continued to 
receive land warrants as long has he dared, but at last they became so 
depreciated that he declined to exchange his dry goods for any more.

Finally he went West and located all the "soldiers' land warrants" he had 
become possessed of, taking up an immense tract of land either in Ohio or 
Illinois.  The number of acres was immense,  Still this did not appear to be a 
well planned operation. The western lands were of no value.  For years and 
years Mr. Munn was using every exertion to raise money to pay the taxes and 
expenses upon this heavy land investment. It kept him in hot water. He was 
always financiering--always short' he was obliged to keep heavily mortgaged 
property that he owned in the city, and by such means he was able to pay the 
western taxes; he was however one of those men said to be born under a lucky 
star.  What would have proved ruinous and beggared others, bettered him.

When the great land speculations of 1835 and 1836 commenced, a company of 
moneyed men, headed by Knowles Taylor, the son-in-law of that excellent man 
and merchant, Jonathan Little, conceived the idea of purchasing the lands of 
Mr. Munn.

J. Little and Company kept store at 216 Pearl Street, near Fletcher and in the 
neighborhood of Mr. Munn's old place. Taylor was the partner and lived in Bond 
Street in pretty good style.  The family was from Connecticut, and Knowles was 
a brother of the celebrated Jeremiah H. Taylor, who lived at 235 Pearl Street.

Jonathan Little and Company was a large silk importing house in its day. He 
was the President of the Marine Society of this city in 1817.

When this company commenced negotiating for the lands, they offered Mr. Munn a 
large price, half cash and half the price to remain on bond and mortgage.  He 
knew these men too well. They were all rich and he turned a deaf ear to the 
offer. He had fixed in his own mind, upon a just price for the lands for cash 
and he would no submit to any deviation; therefore he named $200,000 cash.  
There was a short delay; but the spirit of speculation was abroad with spread 
wings and flying all over the land and this company paid the price demanded in 
cash and received a deed of the lands.

That sale was the greatest god-send of his life. It relieved him from his 
embarrassments; and shortly after, when land fell in the city, he was enabled 
to make some splendid purchases in localities that trebled in value. He was 
always engaged in lawsuits.

Stephen B. had a brother named Patrick Munn, who was in the fur business in 
this city many years, commencing as early as 1800 in Burling Slip; and I think 
that brother was in business as late as 1830 but of this latter fact I am not 
sure.

I think the wife of Stephen B. Munn was a Connecticut girl and came here with 
him. They had a large family of children.  Some of his daughters were 
magnificent girls and greatly sought after, both for their beauty and their 
probable wealth.

There were some runaway matches. One married Captain Russell Glover and it 
came under that head. They are both living.  Another runaway match was with 
Captain Jack Pierce-handsome Jack, as he was called. I must say that when he 
aired one of Wheeler's fashionable suits, he was a gay looking man.  He was 
captain of one of the Havre packets. He is dead. There were three or four 
children from this marriage.

William A. Munn was another son.  He lived with his father at 503 Broadway, 
many years.

One son went West and became a large merchant at Ithaca, N.Y.  His name was 
Stephen and the old man bought the stock of goods for him and paid for them 
too.  That son, I think, failed and made a bad thing of it and died. He left a 
son, Stephen that I have not seen for some years.

A daughter married Thomas F. Cornell, who was in the pot and pearlash business 
at no. 7 Coenties Slip many years, once I believe, with his brother Alexander 
and once was of the firm of Cornell and Cooper.

Mr. Cornell lived at No. 505 Broadway next door to his father-in-law for a few 
years.  Old Stephen owned that property. Mr. Stokes married one daughter. John 
B. Borst, a broker in Wall Street, now married a daughter, but she was the 
widow of Mr. Stokes, when B. married her. A Mr. Beebe married a daughter.

I think one of his sons-in-law was a doctor-Marshall, it may be.  Once the old 
man said to a friend, "When I left business about 1820 I was worth, clear of 
the world, $800,000. I have not got half of it now. It has been eaten up-drank 
up-squandered-spent-all used up-by all except one-that is the doctor; he has 
never drawn a cent out of me and he shall have it all when I die."

It is pretty certain that when Mr. Munn died in 1855 or 1856, his property 
would not have sold for a quarter of $800,000.  But property rose in value 
greatly after his death. He left four executors to his will. One was Dr. 
Cheeseman, another was John A. Collyer of Binghamton and the other two names I 
do not recollect.  Under the management of Mr. Collyer, his property realized 
more than it was ever expected it would do. Of the real estate on Broadway, 
that portion upon which Lord and Taylor's store stands brought $250,000.  The 
two lots next to the St. Nicholas Hotel, extending through to Mercer Street 
brought $75,000 each. The estate produced a large sum.

When Mrs. Munn died a few years ago, at the residence, 503 Broadway, her body 
was laid out in the house.