John Jacob Astor

Astor, John Jacob, 1763-1848, American merchant, b. Walldorf, near Heidelberg, Germany. At the age of 16 he went to England, and five years later, in 1784, he arrived in Baltimore, penniless. He later went to New York City, where in a few years he entered into business with a small shop for trade in musical instruments and furs. Shrewdness, driving ambition, and stolid concentration brought him to a commanding position in the burgeoning economy of the United States. He became a leader of the China trade and was an astute investor in lands, principally in and around New York City, but he is perhaps best remembered as a fur trader. He chartered the American Fur Company (1808) and founded subsidiary companies—the Pacific Fur Company (see Astoria, Oreg.) and the South West Company (operating around the Great Lakes). His firm exercised a virtual monopoly of the trade in U.S. territories in the 1820s and still did when he retired from it in 1834. The wealthiest man in the United States at his death, he left a fortune that has continued to make the family name prominent. Part of his money went to found the Astor Library (see New York Public Library). His Astor House was a forerunner of family hotel properties that much later included the Astor Hotel and the Waldorf-Astoria.

Astor, John Jacob, 1822-90, American financier, b. New York City, educated at Columbia and Göttingen universities and at Harvard law school; son of William Backhouse Astor (1792-1875). He served in the Peninsular campaign in the Civil War and later took a minor part in New York civic and political affairs. His son was William Waldorf Astor.

Astor, John Jacob, 1864-1912, American financier, b. Rhinebeck, N.Y.; son of William Backhouse Astor (1829-92). He served in the Spanish-American War. Drowned in the Titanic disaster, he left two sons, Vincent, the son of his first marriage, and John Jacob Astor, fifth of the name in America, the son of his second marriage.

orig. Johann Jakob Astor

(born July 17, 1763, Waldorf, Ger.—died March 29, 1848, New York, N.Y., U.S.) German-born U.S. fur magnate and financier. After emigrating from Germany at age17, he opened a fur-goods shop in New York circa 1786. By 1800 he was a leader in the fur trade, and he established the American Fur Co. He controlled the fur trade with China (1800–17) and in the Mississippi and Missouri valleys (in the 1820s) before selling his interests in 1834. His investment in New York City real estate became the foundation of the family fortune. At his death, Astor was the wealthiest person in the U.S.; he willed $400,000 to found what became the New York Public Library. His son, William B. Astor (1792–1875), greatly expanded the family real-estate holdings, building more than 700 stores and dwellings in the city.

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''For other pages relating to Astor, see John Jacob Astor (disambiguation)

John Jacob Astor (born Johann Jakob or Johann Jacob Astor) (July 17, 1763–March 29, 1848) was the first prominent member of the Astor family and the first multi-millionaire in the United States. He was the creator of the first trust in America, from which he made his fortune in fur trading, real estate, and opium.

From humble origins in Germany, he emigrated to London and then to America following the American Revolutionary War. He built a fur-trading empire that extended to the Great Lakes region and Canada, and later expanded into the American West and Pacific coast. In the early 1800s he diversified into New York City real estate and later became a famed patron of the arts.

At the time of his death in 1848, Astor was the wealthiest person in the United States, leaving an estate estimated to be worth at least 20 million dollars; according to the latest Forbes rankings, he would be worth $115 billion in 2007 U.S. dollars, making him the fourth wealthiest person in American history.

Biography

Early life

John Jacob Astor's ancestors were Waldensian refugees from Savoy. He was born in Walldorf, near Heidelberg in the old Palatinate which became part of Baden during the 19th century, Germany (currently in the Rhein-Neckar district). His father (Johann Jacob Astor) was a butcher. The son John Jacob Astor learned English in London while working for his brother, George Astor, manufacturing musical instruments.

Astor arrived in the United States in March 1784, just after the end of the Revolutionary War. He traded furs with Indians and then he started a fur goods shop in New York City in the late 1780s.

He married Sarah Todd and once said of her that she had the best business sense of anyone he knew.

Fortune from fur trade

Astor took advantage of the Jay Treaty between Great Britain and the United States in 1794 which opened new markets in Canada and the Great Lakes region. By 1800 he had amassed almost a quarter of a million dollars, and had become one of the leading figures in the fur trade. In 1800, following the example of the Empress of China, the first American trading vessel to China, Astor traded furs, teas and sandalwood with Canton in China, and greatly benefited from it. The Embargo Act from Thomas Jefferson in 1807, however, disrupted his import/export business. With the permission of President Jefferson, Astor established the American Fur Company on April 6, 1808. He later formed subsidiaries: the Pacific Fur Company, and the Southwest Fur Company (in which Canadians had a part), in order to control fur trading in the Columbia River and Great Lakes area.

The Columbia River trading post at Fort Astoria (established in April 1811) was the first United States community on the Pacific coast. He financed the overland Astor Expedition in 1810–12 to reach the outpost. Members of the expedition were to discover South Pass through which hundreds of thousands settlers on the Oregon, California and Mormon trails passed through the Rocky Mountains.

His fur trading ventures were disrupted once again when the British captured his trading posts during the War of 1812, but rebounded in 1817 after the U.S. Congress passed a protectionist law that barred foreign traders from U.S. Territories. The American Fur Company once again came to dominate trading in the area around the Great Lakes. In 1822, Astor established the Astor House on Mackinac Island as headquarters for the reformed American Fur Company, making the island a metropolis of the fur trade. A lengthy description based on documents, diaries etc. was given by Washington Irving in his travelogue Astoria.

In 1804, Astor purchased from Aaron Burr what remained of a ninety-nine year lease on property in Manhattan. At the time, Burr was serving as vice president under Thomas Jefferson and desperately needed the purchase price of $62,500. The lease was to run until May 1, 1806. Astor began subdividing the land into nearly 250 lots and subleased them. His conditions were that the tenant could do whatever they wish with the lots for twenty-one years, after which they must renew the lease or Astor would take back the lot.

Real estate and retirement

In the 1830s, John Jacob Astor foresaw that the next big boom would be the build-up of New York, which would soon emerge as one of the world’s greatest cities. Astor withdrew from the American Fur Company, as well as all his other ventures, and used the money to buy and develop large tracts of Manhattan real estate. Predicting the rapid growth northward on Manhattan Island, Astor purchased more and more land out beyond the current city limits. Astor rarely built on his land, and instead let others pay rent to use it.

Death

After retiring from his business, Astor spent the rest of his life as a patron of culture. He supported the ornithologist John James Audubon, the poet/writer Edgar Allan Poe, and the presidential campaign of Henry Clay. At the time of his death in 1848, Astor was the wealthiest person in the United States, leaving an estate estimated to be worth at least 20 million dollars. In his will, he gave orders to build the Astor Library for the New York public (later consolidated with other libraries to form New York Public Library), as well as a poorhouse in his German hometown, Walldorf. He also ordered that his business papers and ledgers were to be incinerated. Historians can only speculate as to what he was trying to hide.

Astor left the bulk of his fortune to his second son, William Backhouse Astor, Sr. His eldest son, John Jacob II, had a mental disability and therefore was ineligible to receive the inheritance, although the family continued to care for him.

John Jacob Astor is buried in the Trinity Churchyard Cemetery in the New York City borough of Manhattan. As a symbol of the earliest fortunes in New York, John Jacob Astor is mentioned in Herman Melville's novella Bartleby, the Scrivener.

The famous pair of marble lions that sit by the stairs of the New York Public Library at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street were originally named Leo Astor and Leo Lenox, after Astor and James Lenox, who founded the library. Then they were called Lord Astor and Lady Lenox (both lions are males), before being given the names Patience and Fortitude by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia during the Great Depression.

Children

1. Magdalen (1788–1832)
2. Sarah (1790–1791)
3. John Jacob Astor II (1791–1879) was born an imbecile and died childless.
4. William Backhouse Astor, Sr. (1792–1875)
5. Dorothee (1795–1853)
6. Henry (1797–1799)
7. Eliza (1801–1838)
8. Jacob Warndorf (1802)

See also

• Astor family
• John Jacob Astor IV
• John Jacob Astor VI
• John Jacob Astor, 1st Baron Astor of Hever
• Astoria, Oregon
• Astoria, Queens
• Astor Place (Manhattan)
• Astor Row
• List of most wealthy historical figures

References

External links

• Astoria, Author Washington Irving full text (pdf)
• Frontline show