Monday, Sept 16, 1889 I was up early this morning. It was foggy and doubtful but at 6 o'clock I thought I detected signs of clearing and went to work filling out the postal cards which had all been directed and at 7 o'clock I sent Tom down to the office with them. After breakfast I went down town and stopped to order 50 camp chairs sent up. At the office I found a postal card from Eastman from Nantucket. He had left N. Y. on Friday and had been detained at Marthas Vineyard for four days by the storm, was coming to N. Y. tomorrow and would write to me. My auctioneer came at 1.30 and promptly at 2 people began to assemble among them several ladies. I presume there were in all about 50 people present. John McEntee was here early and I was glad to have him in case any question arose. The auctioneer began about 2.30 and sold lot No. 10 which was limited at $960 for $970 to Miss Elliott and evidently bought for Mr & Mrs. [Gillris?]. Next lot No. 2 was started at 960 and sold to F. M. Hoysradt for $1,000. He did not avail himself of the option of No. 3 at the same price but came to me after the sale and asked me if I would give him the refusal of No. 3 until tomorrow at $1000 which I did. The larger lots fronting the river limited at $2000 no one bid upon and all others failed to bring bids until No 6 limited at $800 was reached when it was taken by [Marcin?] Crosby for $800 and he also took No. 7 at the same price. No 8 failed to elicit a bid and the sale closed. Almost no one who had talked most and seemed most anxious to come up here put in an appearance, but as I predicted people whom we least expected were the purchasers. I am not discouraged. Our property was not sacrificed and attention has been called to it. After the sale Capt Van Kewen offered me $2800 for four lots in the garden saying they would be built upon directly but I declined and told him we henceforth asked $1000 for each of these lots. I think he wanted them for P. Schoonmaker, Isaac North, Frank Dewey and himself and I would like to have all of them as purchasers but their offer was too low. It took only about half an hour to sell the lots and the people dispersed. The weather was most favorable, pretty warm but a fine breeze and cool in the shade. I wrote immediately to Vaux and also to Lucy and tonight I am a little tired and glad the result is known. It is not as brilliant as it might have been but I think it has justified our estimate of the value of the property and I think we will begin to sell at private sale at good prices.
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