Astor, John Jacob b.July 17, 1763;Walldorf, Palatinate d. March 29, 1848; New York, New York
German American fur trader, merchant, and real estate owner in New York City who, in the early nineteenth century, accumulated fabulous wealth and became the first U.S. multimillionaire.
John Jacob Astor was the fifth child of a poor butcher who was also named John Jacob Astor and his first wife Maria Magdalena vom Berg in the small village of Walldorf, near Heidelberg. At an early age, he saw no other chance but emigrating to the United States in order to climb up the social ladder. He followed in the footsteps of his two older brothers, George and Henry. First, he made his way to London, where he and his brother George founded a store for selling and constructing musical instruments. Right after the Treaty of Paris (1783) between the United States and Great Britain that ended the American Revolution, he moved on to New York City.
As the legend goes, Astor received the idea to trade furs onboard the North Carolina during the time the ship lay frozen in Chesapeake Bay, near Baltimore, from a mysterious fur trader of German descent. On March 24 or 25, 1784, Astor arrived in Baltimore. Finally he made his way to New York City in the spring of 1784. There, he met his brother Henry, who had come to North America as a Hessian soldier during the American Revolution. His brother helped him to find a job in the New World.
At first, Astor served as a delivery boy for a German baker. After a while he had earned enough money to found his own store. He traded in German toys, wooden flutes, and other instruments imported
John Astor’s first trip for furs. The begining of a great fortune—John Jacob Astor buying furs in western New York. Undated illustration. (Bettmann/Corbis)
from his brother in London. However, his biggest business was the fur trade.
As a young immigrant, he walked through the rough wilderness of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania and along the Hudson River valley to Canada to trade furs, following old Native American trails. He bought the furs from Indians, trappers, and Canadian fur traders and on the biggest fur market on the American continent of that time, Montreal. Since he was not allowed to import his furs directly to the United States due to British law, he had to send them to London and from there to New York. The Jay Treaty of 1794 facilitated Astor’s import business. As a result of this treaty, it became possible for Astor to import furs directly from Montreal to New York. This improved his business as well as his profits.Although Astor became a famous fur trader around the turn of the nineteenth century, the major fur trade remained in the hands of two mighty Canadian fur companies: the North West Company and the Hudson’s Bay Company. With the encouragement of President Thomas Jefferson and Albert Gallatin, the secretary of the treasury, Astor founded the American Fur Company in 1808 to harness control of the fur trade within the U.S. territory. He established trading outposts from St. Louis to the Rocky Mountains. In 1810 Astor engaged in some new endeavors. He dispatched two expeditions to the Pacific Ocean, one of which was to go overland, winning the confidence of the Indians and exploring locations for new trading posts, while the other was to go by sea around Cape Horn with a full cargo of all supplies needed for the establishment of the settlement on the Columbia River, later known as Astoria. But Astor’s plans failed, and he lost his outpost in the War of 1812 to England. Nevertheless, he continued his businesses in fur trade and real estate, as well as in other fields. He bought low-priced farmland outside of New York City, which increased greatly in value and became part of the city of New York during Astor’s lifetime, making it expensive real estate.
This business became the source of most of his wealth. After three long voyages to Europe, Astor retired from the fur trade in 1834.After his last trip to Europe and the death of his wife Sarah, he tore down his former residence on Broadway to build a hotel. This building, named the Astor House, opened in 1836 as the finest hotel in the United States. Many statesmen and famous people stayed in the Astor House during their sojourn in New York. At the end of the nineteenth century, two of Astor’s descendents used the popularity of the early Astor hotels to build the famous Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York.
Astor became an important economic factor for the young republic because he engaged in many fields of business. As the director of the Hudson & Mohawk Railroad Company, he was involved in establishing the New York State railroad; he owned the Park Theater on Broadway—one of the leading theaters of New York; he lent money to important politicians as well as to other citizens of New York; and he was one of the driving powers behind the upcoming China trade following the example of the American trading vessel, The Empress of China, in 1784. Furthermore, Astor was one of the financial investors of the War of 1812. Together with other businessmen he persuaded the government to establish the Second Bank of the United States. Astor’s funds not only provided the financial foundation of the bank, but Astor himself was appointed by the James Madison administration to be one of the bank’s directors. In his last years Astor lived the life of a patron of culture. He encouraged Washington Irving to write his novel Astoria based on the events that happened to the outpost on the Columbia River during the years 1808—1814. He hired the well-known poet Fitz-Greene Halleck, who lived with the multimillionaire on Astor’s domicile Hell Gate, as his personal secretary. Furthermore, he supported the famous ornithologist John James Audubon, the well-known writer Edgar Allan Poe, and the political career of Henry Clay.
During the years 1837—1840 he was the president of the German Society of New York City and donated a large sum to it every year to facilitate the adjustment of German immigrants to life in New York City.When he died, Astor left a fortune of $20 million. In his last will he gave orders to build the Astor Library, which at the end of the nineteenth century was combined with two other libraries to form the New York Public Library. Furthermore, he reserved $50,000 to build a poorhouse in his home village, Walldorf. Astor was the first to live the American dream and to advance from a dishwasher to a millionaire.
Alexander Emmerich
See also German Society of the City of New
York; Hessians; New York City
References and Further Reading
Emmerich, Alexander W. The American
Dream Made in Germany: The Life of John Jacob Astor. Forthcoming, 2005.
Haeger, John D. John Jacob Astor: Business and Finance in the Early Republic. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1991.
Horn, Wilhelm O. von. Johann Jakob Astor: Ein Lebensbild aus dem Volke fur das Volk und seine Jugend. Wiesbaden: Verlag von Kreisel und Riedner, 1854.
Parton, James. Famous Americans of Recent Times. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867.
Porter, Kenneth W. John Jacob Astor: Business Man. 2 vols. New York: Harvard University Press, 1931.