ice extended from 1784 to 1797. He was succeeded by Joshua Sands, brother of the distinguished Comfort Sands, a merchant of some forty well-rounded years, personally popular with all classes, and, for his day and generation, immensely rich. His real estate in Brooklyn—with the material progress and prosperity of which city he was closely identified—as laid out in blocks and squares in the beginning of the present century was assessed for purposes of taxation at $200,000; and he built houses and wharves almost without number. His name is perpetuated in many ways, and his memory fondly cherished. He was a man of culture and political consequence, and from 1805 to 1825 a member of Congress. When President Jefferson came into power, in 1801, he removed Sands from the collectorship, and named John Swartwout for the office; but the latter declined in favor of his intimate friend, David Gelston, who not only received the appointment but held the position until 1820. His successor was Jonathan Thompson, of whom it was said "His integrity was without a blemish;." He was the son of Judge Isaac Thompson and Mary, daughter of Colonel Abraham Gardiner, of Easthampton, Long Island. He had already held for some years the responsible position of Collector of Direct Taxes and Internal Revenues under the Government, and was the chairman of the Democratic-Republican Committee, wielding great power in political affairs. Such was his high reputation that in 1840 his appointment to the presidency of the Manhattan Company, just after the defalcation of Robert White, restored public confidence in that institution at once. Samuel Swartwout was given the collectorship of the port immediately upon Jackson's accession to the presidency in 1830. He was a man of colossal stature, the picture of robust health, his bright, animated face beaming with good-nature and intelligence. He had been with Aaron Burr in those Western adventures culminating in arrest and trial for treason; and about 1815 created a sensation on his own account by purchasing, in company with his brothers, the spongy Newark meadows, with the intention of converting them into a great beautiful garden. Everybody smiled at this visionary scheme; some laughed outright. But within four years, thirteen hundred acres of solid soil, within sight of Trinity steeple, attested the value of embankments and ditches, and prepared the way for the railroads of the future to be laid across it in safety. Thus far the Swartwouts fought the tides of the ocean on individual responsibility. But as soon as they sought extraneous aid in appropriations and loans, the tables turned, and the signs of promise were henceforward hidden under a cloud. Collector Swartwout went to Europe in 1838 to negotiate a loan for the Cumberland Coal Company, in which he was interested, and while he was
