Negro maid , to houses here and there : in Hempstead , Long Island ; Nursery Farm in Babylon [ Long Island ]; a bungalow in Kentucky ; The Surcingle , a cottage in Saratoga [ New York ], set in the center of a small , private training track that adjoined Saratoga race course ; a shooting place in South Carolina ; houses like that in New York and By the Sea in Newport , with 16 servants for indoor housekeeping and four men in the garage , three in the stable and several gardeners .
Belmont ’ s 1,100-acre Babylon estate included a nine-acre lake stocked with trout ; forests stocked with game for hunting ; a mile-long racetrack ; barns and staff for breeding fox terriers , cattle and hogs ; a bowling alley and a heated garage for 40 cars . The 24-room main house was adorned with enormous oil portraits of favorite Belmont horses .
Belmont also had the Gilded Age mogul ’ s sina qua non : a private rail car , with a French chef and a porter at his owner ’ s beck and call . “ A private railroad car is not an acquired taste . One takes to it immediately ,” Eleanor wrote , fondly recalling hunting trips to Canada ( moose ) and South Carolina ( quail ).
As head of the IRT , he also purchased a one-of-a-kind private subway car , with mahogany panels , leaded glass , a roll-top desk , a toilet and a small kitchen .
Alas , Belmont ’ s luck ran out in the 1910s .
The Reckoning
In 1909 , Belmont broke ground for a seven-mile canal across the isthmus of Cape Cod . The trench , dreamed of since colonial times , shaved 135 miles off the sailing distance between Boston and New York , allowed mariners to avoid the treacherous waters off the Cape and created a sheltered shipping route in the event of war .
Belmont hired William Barclay Parsons , the brilliant master engineer of the subway , to design the waterway . But when crews began digging in 1909 , instead of sand , they found enormous granite boulders that had to be dynamited , then dug up and removed . Construction dragged out and costs ran up .
When the canal was finally completed in 1916 , complex tides made it difficult to navigate and it failed to draw the expected traffic . Tolls had to be reduced and , by the late teens , Belmont was struggling to keep the canal out of bankruptcy . At one point , he went hat in hand to the widow of railroad baron E . H . Harriman , who anted up $ 500,000 . Belmont spent the last years of his life trying to persuade Congress to take the albatross off his hands .
The canal crisis was unfolding when America entered World War I in 1917 . Belmont , then 64 , enlisted in the Army . With the rank of major , the racehorse owner was dispatched to Spain to negotiate for war materiel — primarily mules and blankets .
Back home , the war took a toll on the IRT . After 50 years with virtually no inflation , prices soared . Coal and steel prices soon doubled and the IRT was forced to boost pay 25 % in 1919 . But , as part of a 1913 agreement with the city to win new franchises , the IRT and a private rival had agreed to keep fares frozen at a nickel — a provision the companies then saw as protection against political pressure to lower fares . Now the clause squeezed them severely as costs ran out of control .
In 1920 , the IRT couldn ’ t pay off bonds as they came due and was forced to buy time by selling $ 2.9 million of new shortterm notes at a stiff 7 % interest rate . When those came due the next year , the company was in no better position and had to ask creditors for repeated extensions . By 1921 , it also owed $ 3 million to a supplier , which tried to put the IRT into receivership . It took two years to restructure debt from the elevated and streetcar purchases and reduce the IRT ’ s interest expense . That kept the company solvent until the Depression .
When Belmont died in 1924 , the newspapers estimated that his estate was worth as much as $ 50 million , or about $ 750 million in today ’ s dollars . But it appears they did not reckon with his offsetting debts . The government finally bought the canal in 1926 for $ 11.5 million , far less than the construction cost and its accumulated losses . By one account , Belmont alone lost $ 5 million . His widow was forced to sell all his race horses and his Babylon spread , notwithstanding a provision in his will barring its sale in her lifetime . His will left nothing to charity .
“ The future of our family fortunes seemed highly precarious ” because of “ the heavy burden of the Cape Cod Canal ,” Eleanor recalled years later in her memoirs .
His Legacy
Despite his remarkable life , there is no biography of Belmont . His brief Wikipedia entry focuses on horse racing . The family name lives on only in the Belmont Stakes and the race track , both named for his father , and a state park created from a corner of his Babylon estate . Most of the Babylon property went to developers , who built middle-class homes . A six-lane highway runs near the spot where the mansion filled with horse portraits once stood .
Why is Belmont largely forgotten ? He benefitted his city and his country enormously through the 1895 bailout , the subway and the canal . But with hindsight , perhaps too much of his passion and acumen were devoted to horses , hunting , sailing and entertaining . Perhaps if he and his father had left something to charity , they would have purchased a better place in history .
John E . Morris is a journalist and author . Parts of this article are adapted from his Subway : The Curiosities , Secrets , and Unofficial History of the New York City Transit System ( Black Dog Leventhal 2020 ). He is also co-author of King of Capital : The Remarkable Rise , Fall , and Rise Again of Steve Schwarzman and Blackstone ( Crown 2010 ), a history of Blackstone Group and the private equity industry .
Other Sources
Baker , Ray Stannard . “ The Subway Deal .” McClure ’ s Magazine . March 1905 . Available at https :// www . nycsubway . org / wiki / The _ Subway _ Deal _( 1905 )
Belmont , Eleanor Robson . The Fabric of Memory . Farrar , Straus and Cudahy . 1957 .
Black , David . The King of Fifth Avenue : The Fortunes of August Belmont . Dial Press . 1981 .
Chernow , Ron . The House of Morgan : An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance . Atlantic Monthly Press . 1990 .
Hood , Clifton . 722 Miles : The Building of the Subways and How They Transformed New York . Simon & Schuster . 1993 .
US Army Corps of Engineers . Cape Cod Canal History . Available at https :// www . nae . usace . army . mil / Missions / Recreation / Cape-Cod -Canal / History /, retrieved January 28 , 2021
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