AMERICAN SAILORS' HOME

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 23, 27 January 1923, Page 11

AMERICAN SAILORS' HOME

The richest charitable institution in New York, which in 100 years has never appealed for funds, and which has a cash surplus of more than 2,000,000 dollars, is Sailors' Snug Harbour, on Staten Island. How this institution was founded with a bequest valued at only about 30,000 dollars is told in a recent issue of "Better Times,". I'the welfare magazine. More than 1000 superannuated seamen are drowsing out their lives in Sailors' Snug Harbour, whose founding was tho idea of Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton is recorded as advising Captain Robert Richard Randall, " a bachelor /ibre careful and successful than most of his fellows," that since his fortune been mada by " honest profiteering," he should, give it back to the Beamen who had made it for him. Captain Randall's will, made in 1801, disposed of securities and a farm of about twenty-one acres, tha whole then valued at about 30,000 dollars. The increase in the value of the farm, in the very heart of Manhattan Island, has been so tremendous that-the income .of the estate last year was 1,115,403 dollars. The value of tho estate itself has been estimated sometimes at as high as 80,000,000 dollars, although the trustees have not for years made any public statement other than that of income and expenditure, as required by the terms of their charter..