 |
| Sleighing in New York by Thomas Benecke, 1855 (Print Collection, New York Public Library; bequest of Amos F. Eno) |
In 1915 when
Amos F. Eno died, he was recalled as an eighteenth-century millionaire
philanthropist struggling to hold onto the vestiges of the antebellum city in
which he came of age.
The Great
War had begun one year earlier and suffragists regularly picketed the White
House. As a creature of the past, Eno didn’t like it. He was so out of date that it was hard to imagine that once upon a time
the old man’s name perched on the tip of everyone’s tongue.
A “peculiar
expression of static citizenry,” as the New
York Times described him, he objected to progress and advancement. What a perverse outlook in light of the fact
that he and his father, Amos R. Eno, contributed mightily to the modernization
of Manhattan.
The Enos
were real estate developers who owned property all over town, including large
swaths of what would become the Flatiron and Financial Districts. They constructed
dozens of houses, hotels, and apartment buildings that altered the streetscape of the city.
Born in 1834, Amos F. Eno joined New York’s Seventh Infantry Regiment as a private in 1862. He returned from the war a colonel, moved in
with his father, and resumed his bachelor’s existence. The two men inhabited an early
nineteenth-century brownstone mansion at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Tenth
Street.
 |
| Amos F. Eno and his father lived in this brownstone mansion at 32 Fifth Avenue, designed by Detlef Lienau in 1834.* |
Amos F.
liked to walk around Washington Square, three blocks south of his home, where he
met vagrants and bestowed upon them money, food, and clothing. His
philosophy was to give charity only when not
asked.
At the other
side of the economic spectrum, his neighbors included the so-called Washington
Square millionaires – men like Robert de Forest, a descendant of French
Huguenots, esteemed legal counsel to railroads and utilities, president of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art.
 |
| Amos F. Eno (1834-1915) |
As society
moved uptown to ever more expansive and ornate mansions, the denizens of
Washington Square stayed put, as if trapped in a painting by John Singer Sargent. Inevitably, they would have to head north to
restaurants, libraries, and clubs.
When he died
at the age of 81, Amos F. left much of his vast fortune to Columbia University
and the General Society for Mechanics and Tradesmen.** New York University, the American Museum of
Natural History, and the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor
also received bequests. Evidently none
of these institutions had ever tapped on his shoulder and asked for money.
Members of the
Eno family angrily contested the will. Their lawyers argued that Amos F. loathed Columbia
University President Nicholas Murray Butler and never would have left the
school well over $10 million. Furthermore, suspicious circumstances surrounded the drafting of the most recent will. Nonetheless, a panel of judges ruled against
the family in 1922. Fortunately,
everyone survived even though they had portrayed themselves as destitute.
 |
| New York Supreme Court In the Matter of Amos F. Eno |
A rather
private man, Amos F. would have abhorred the detailed descriptions of his
comings and goings that appeared in the court transcripts – 156 pages of
friends’, family’s, and servants’ candid testimony about his bad temper, bad
leg, and bad manners. Miss Polly Morgan
recounted her week-long visit to his home in 1914.
She drove downtown with him one day when he
remained at his office an hour and a half. He spoke to her about his business. He
told her that he wished he had no business to do; that he would like to
simplify his affairs; that the men in his office were good for nothing . . .
Miss Morgan testified that with respect to
dropping his food, and with respect to the condition of his clothing, Mr. Eno
“did not look as elegant as he had in previous years.”
Miss Morgan undertook to joke with Mr. Eno. She
asked him about his friends, the Democrats, and said “How is your Mr. Bryan getting
on, Uncle Mo? And how do you like him?” He said, “Bryan is no good. He is the
leader of the suffragettes.”
Amos F. may
have been a mean old man, but at least he claimed one great passion. That was his collection of early American
prints, many exceedingly rare and valuable.
To the New York Public Library he left 192 framed and 138 unframed
images – a major gift. Some speculated
that the prints had appreciated at a greater rate than his real
estate holdings.
The prints resonated deep inside of Amos F. He liked the way that they evoked landscapes and streetscapes long passed into history. They took him back to a place of memory and happiness.
“He was very much an old New Yorker,” an admirer said.
 |
| New York from Brooklyn Heights by A. W. Graham, 1834 (Print Collection, New York Public Library; bequest of Amos F. Eno) |
*Courtesy of daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com
**The size of
Eno’s fortune has been estimated between $10 million and $30 million.
