(336) 
soil, two acres swampy, and that he had received notice that 
the wall encroached twelve feet on Fifth Avenue.* 
In November, 1833, Shaw assigned his lease to John Ward, 
a prominent exchange broker and banker in Wall Street and 
for several years president of the Stock Exchange, who had 
made advances to him upon it, and who held the lease until 
it expired in 1850. In 1835 and 1836 various negotiations 
were had between the trustees, who were anxious to pay off 
their accumulating debt, and Mr. Ward, looking to a cancella- 
tion of the lease, and the sale of new leases of single lots for 
long renewable terms, at a nominal rent, and a division 
between them of the premiums realized on the sales. The 
trustees voted to agree to this, provided $6,000 were first 
reserved to them from the proceeds, and their share of the 
residue to be not less than $40,000. Mr. Ward wanted 26 
lots (four of them on Fifth Avenue), to be first reserved for 
himself. Other modifications were proposed, but no agree- 
ment could be reached.t 
In 1838 the city began opening streets in the region of the 
garden. During the next 25 years the trustees expended 
over $150,000 in payment of assessments, and by their own 
contracts, for completing the streets and levelling the grounds, 
so as to be ready for use.t In 1850, though their debt amounted 
to $68,000, the trustees, disagreeing with the standing com- 
mittee, voted not to sell any of the property at present.§ In 
1851, the long lease having expired, the grounds were laid 
out into city lots, and in 1852 it was resolved to prepare them 
for leasing in separate lots.|| In 1856 it was voted to remove 
the college to the two blocks on 4gth Street, and Mr. Upjohn 
prepared plans for one of the buildings with a facade of 280 
feet.7 But the expense made building impracticable,** and 
* Trustees’ Min. Columbia Col., 3: 298, 397, 409. 
f Ibid., 3: 336, 443, 450, = 461, 465, 476, 477. 
}See Treasurer’s Reports, and Reports to ee 1851 to 1863. 
2 Hist. Columbia Un., oS 243 130-160. 0. 
** Pine’s Half Moon Ser., 2: 47. 
