In the course of time the Island was dotted all over with Astor
lands,--to such an extent that the whole income of his estate for
fifty years could be invested in new houses without buying any more
land.
His land speculations, however, were by no means confined to the
little Island of Manhattan. Aged readers cannot have forgotten the
most celebrated of all his operations of this kind, by which he
acquired a legal title to one third of the county of Putnam in this
State. This enormous tract was part of the estate of Roger Morris and
Mary his wife, who, by adhering to the King of Great Britain in the
Revolutionary War, forfeited their landed property in the State of New
York. Having been duly attainted as public enemies, they fled to
England at the close of the war, and the State sold their lands, in
small parcels, to honest Whig farmers. The estate comprised fifty-one
thousand one hundred and two acres, upon which were living, in 1809,
more than seven hundred families, all relying upon the titles which
the State of New York had given. Now Mr. Astor stepped forward to
disturb the security of this community of farmers.
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