Alexander Turney Stewart

Alexander Turney Stewart was the founder of the department store as we today know it. Born in 1803 he used a legacy to invest in Irish linens and opened a store in New York in the early 1920s. He grew to be a multi-millionaire. His story is told in Wikipedia.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Turney_Stewart

The reason he appears here on this blog is because there are connections with CTR’s family. They may go back to the old country, Ireland, or if not, to the Russell family’s early days in America.

Among CTR’s family were three Uncles who all went to America, and they all had connections with Turney Stewart.

Uncle Charles TAYS Russell’s obituary mentions Stewart.

The obituary states he received his early lessons in active business from A T Stewart. That could be anything from a tutelage to working in Stewart’s New York store.

Uncle James Russell (who bought the grave plot for the family in the Allegheny cemetery) ran a boarding school and academy in Elmwood Hill, Bloomingdale, New York for around 20 years. For most of those years his newspaper advertisements said a prospectus could be obtained from A T Stewart’s Broadway Store. (Did Stewart help with finance?)

And third – Uncle Alexander who spent most of his American life in New York and New Jersey had a daughter named Cornelia born in 1840. A family history document says she was “named for Mrs A T Stewart” – who was indeed a Cornelia

So there are at least three connections between CTR’s Uncles and the multi-millionaire Stewart. The last one about the name Cornelia suggests the link were not just business, but personal.

There is a chain from Stewart’s Irish linen store and dry goods in New York, to Charles Tays’ Russell opening something similar in Pittsburgh, to his brother Joseph Lytle joining him, to CTR taking over that type of business and selling shirts.

Unfortunately few documents from Stewart’s business empire have survived today, so it may never be possible to join all the dots.

Unless anyone out there has more information?