There Philip Hone was born on the 25th of October, 1780, and there he passed his boyhood in a wooden house at the corner of John and Dutch Streets which his father bought in 1784.

After a common school education, he became, at seventeen years of age, a clerk for an older brother whose business as an auctioneer consisted mainly in selling the cargoes brought to New York by American merchantmen.

Two years as a clerk, and then Philip was made a partner.

The firm prospered, and by 1820, the future diarist, though only forty years old, had become a rich man.

With the best years of his mature life before him, with a wish to see the world and a desire for self-improvement, he retired from business, and in 1821, made his first journey to Europe, sailing from New York on the "James Monroe." When he returned, he bought a house on Broadway, near Park Place, on the exact spot now occupied by the Woolworth Building, for which he paid twenty-five thousand dollars.
There is extant an old print of the house, showing also the American Hotel on the corner, and another residence, the ground floor of which was occupied by Peabody's Book Shop.