Great Fortunes: Andrew V. Stout Part 2
When he was eighteen years old he was made principal of Public School No. 2 of New York. He was living at Bushwick, where he resided with his mother and sister in a cozy little cottage, the garden of which was his pride, since he tended it with his own hands. It was his custom to rise every morning at four o’clock, and work in his garden until seven. Then he rode into the city, and attended to his school duties until four o’clock, when he returned home.
He was now in possession of a comfortable living; but he was not satisfied to do this and nothing more. He was anxious to win fortune, to enter upon a more active and stirring pursuit, and he kept himself always on the watch for an opening. About the time he became the head of the public school we have referred to, he commenced to engage in various ventures of a commercial nature, devoting to them his evenings, and the hours of the day not demanded by his school.
One of his relatives was a builder, with a fair trade, and had made some money by erecting houses in New York. Young Stout, who had saved a little money, proposed to him that they should take out a contract for building a number of dwellings on the then fashionable thoroughfare of East Broadway. The elder man was pleased with the plan, and at once consented to it. The houses were built at a handsome profit; others followed them, and by attending closely to this business, as well as his other duties, Andrew Stout, by the time he was twenty years old, had saved seventeen thousand dollars—a very large sum in those steady-going days.
He was greatly aided by the custom of doing business on time, which then prevailed, but he never allowed one of his notes to be protested, and never asked for an extension. When he began business, he did so with the firm resolve that he would conduct his most insignificant transaction as a Christian man of honor. If he could not make money honestly, he would remain poor. Every body saw the energy and judgment with which he conducted his affairs, and the strict integrity which marked them all, and he was not long in building up a reputation as a business man of which any one might have been proud. The promptness and apparent ease with which he met every contract, and took up every note, caused it to be generally believed that he was a very rich man. Further than this, it was known that he was a zealous and earnest Christian, one who carried his religion into his business, and who lived up to his professions. He was an active member of the Methodist Church, and the business man of the congregation to which he belonged. In his hands its finances prospered as they had never done before. Such was the reputation of this young man, who had not yet attained his majority.
He held his position in the public school for several years after his appointment to it, but the requirements of his business at length compelled him to relinquish it.
