John Adams was President of the U. S. when Jacobus Roosevelt opened his Manhattan hardware store in 1797. The hardware business flourished despite the yellow fever that plagued the city the following year and Jacobus Roosevelt took his son Cornelius into partnership. In the course of business Roosevelt & Son found it expedient to discount its customers' notes. Before long it began discounting notes of other hardware merchants. By 1824 the prospering Roosevelts were able to take a hand in founding the Chemical Bank (now Manhattan's potent Chemical Bank & Trust Co.). By...
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