 His enterprise was so solid that conservative bankers like Prime, Ward & King invested substantial sums with him.In 1833, Bronson, along with his sons Arthur, Frederic, and Charles Butler, the brother of Benjamin Franklin Butler the U.S. Attorney General, used his vast wealth to make one of the largest land purchases of his day.Utilizing capital from the New York Life Insurance and Trust Company, among other banks, they purchased nearly one-third of a million acres of land across eight states, including North Carolina, Indiana, Chicago (which had a population of only 500 at the time) and other parts of Illinois, and the Michigan Territory Bronson was competing against John Jacob Astor, who also acquired a vast real estate portfolio.