CHAPTER XI

NEW YORK AS HEADQUARTERS

Our business continued to expand and required frequent visits on my part to the East, especially to New York, which is as London to Britain—­the headquarters of all really important enterprises in America.  No large concern could very well get on without being represented there.  My brother and Mr. Phipps had full grasp of the business at Pittsburgh.  My field appeared to be to direct the general policy of the companies and negotiate the important contracts.

My brother had been so fortunate as to marry Miss Lucy Coleman, daughter of one of our most valued partners and friends.  Our family residence at Homewood was given over to him, and I was once more compelled to break old associations and leave Pittsburgh in 1867 to take up my residence in New York.  The change was hard enough for me, but much harder for my mother; but she was still in the prime of life and we could be happy anywhere so long as we were together.  Still she did feel the leaving of our home very much.  We were perfect strangers in New York, and at first took up our quarters in the St. Nicholas Hotel, then in its glory.  I opened an office in Broad Street.

For some time the Pittsburgh friends who came to New York were our chief source of happiness, and the Pittsburgh papers seemed necessary to our existence.  I made frequent visits there and my mother often accompanied me, so that our connection with the old home was still maintained.  But after a time new friendships were formed and new interests awakened and New York began to be called home.  When the proprietors of the St. Nicholas opened the Windsor Hotel uptown, we took up our residence there and up to the year 1887 that was our New York home.  Mr. Hawk, the proprietor, became one of our valued friends and his nephew and namesake still remains so.

Among the educative influences from which I derived great advantage in New York, none ranks higher than the Nineteenth Century Club organized by Mr. and Mrs. Courtlandt Palmer.  The club met at their house once a month for the discussion of various topics and soon attracted many able men and women.  It was to Madame Botta I owed my election to membership—­a remarkable woman, wife of Professor Botta, whose drawing-room became more of a salon than any in the city, if indeed it were not the only one resembling a salon at that time.  I was honored by an invitation one day to dine at the Bottas’ and there met for the first time several distinguished people, among them one who became my lifelong friend and wise counselor, Andrew D. White, then president of Cornell University, afterwards Ambassador to Russia and Germany, and our chief delegate to the Hague Conference.