employing thousands of men and fleets of ships, it afforded an opening to young Astor, who, with the assistance of his brother, could command a capital of only a very few hundred dollars. In a little shop in Water Street, with a back-room, a yard, and a shed, the shop furnished with only a few toys and trinkets, Astor began, business about the year 1786. He had then, as always, the most unbounded confidence in his own abilities. He used to relate that, at this time, a new row of houses in Broadway was the talk of the city from their magnitude and beauty. Passing them one day, he said to himself: “I’ll build some time or other a greater house than any of these, and in this very street.” He used also to say, in his old age: “The first hundred thousand dollars–that was hard to get; but afterward it was easy to make more.”
Having set up for himself, he worked with the quiet, indomitable ardor of a German who sees clearly his way open before him. At first he did everything for himself. He bought, cured, beat, packed, and sold his skins. From dawn till dark, he assiduously labored. At the proper seasons of the year, with his pack on his back, he made short excursions into the country, collecting skins from house to house, gradually extending the area of his travels, till he knew the State of New York as no man of his day knew it. He used to boast, late in life, when the Erie Canal had called into being a line of thriving towns through the centre of the State, that he had himself, in his numberless tramps, designated the sites of those towns, and predicted that one day they would be the centres of business and population. Particularly he noted the spots where Rochester and Buffalo now stand, one having a harbor on Lake Erie, the other upon Lake Ontario. Those places, he predicted, would one day be large and prosperous cities, and that prediction he made when there was scarcely a settlement at Buffalo, and only wigwams on the site of Rochester. At this time he had a partner who usually remained in the city, while the agile and enduring Astor traversed the wilderness.
It was his first voyage to London that established his business on a solid foundation. As soon as he had accumulated a few bales of the skins suited to the European market, he took passage in the steerage of a ship and conveyed them to London. He sold them to great advantage, and established connections with houses to which he could in future consign his furs, and from which he could procure the articles best adapted to the taste of Indians and hunters. But his most important operation in London was to make an arrangement with the firm of Astor & Broadwood, by which he became the New York agent for the sale of their pianos, flutes, and violins. He is believed to have been the first man in New York who kept constantly for sale a supply of musical merchandise, of which the annual sale in New York is now reckoned at five millions of dollars. On his return to New York, he opened a little dingy store in Gold Street, between Fulton and Ann, and swung out a sign to the breeze bearing the words:–FURS AND PIANOS.
There were until recently aged men among us who remembered seeing this sign over the store of Mr. Astor, and in some old houses are preserved ancient pianos, bearing the name of J.J. Astor, as the seller thereof. Violins and flutes, also, are occasionally met with that have his name upon them. In 1790, seven years after his arrival in this city, he was of sufficient importance to appear in the Directory thus:–ASTOR, J.J., Fur Trader, 40 Little Dock Street (now part of Water Street).
In this time of his dawning prosperity, while still inhabiting the small house of which his store was a part, he married. Sarah Todd was the maiden name of his wife. As a connection of the family of Brevoort, she was then considered to be somewhat superior to her husband in point of social rank, and she brought him a fortune, by no means despised by him at that time, of three hundred dollars. She threw herself heartily into her husband’s growing business, laboring with her own hands, buying, sorting, and beating the furs. He used to say that she was as good a judge of the value of peltries as himself, and that her opinion in a matter of business was better than that of most merchants.
Of a man like Astor all kinds of stories will be told, some true, some false; some founded upon fact, but exaggerated or distorted. It is said, for example, that when he went into business for himself, he used to go around among the shops and markets with a basket of toys and cakes upon his arm, exchanging those articles for furs. There are certainly old people among us who remember hearing their parents say that they saw him doing this. The story is not improbable, for he had no false pride, and was ready to turn his hand to anything that was honest.
Mr. Astor still traversed the wilderness. The father of the late lamented General Wadsworth used to relate that he met him once in the woods of Western New York in a sad plight. His wagon had broken down in the midst of a swamp. In the _melee_ all his gold had rolled away through the bottom of the vehicle, and was irrecoverably lost; and Astor was seen emerging from the swamp covered with mud and carrying on his shoulder an axe,–the sole relic of his property. When at length, in 1794, Jay’s treaty caused the evacuation of the western forts held by the British, his business so rapidly extended that he was enabled to devolve these laborious journeys upon others, while he remained in New York, controlling a business that now embraced the region of the great lakes, and gave employment to a host of trappers, collectors, and agents. He was soon in a position to purchase a ship, in which his furs were carried to London, and in which he occasionally made a voyage himself. He was still observed to be most assiduous in the pursuit of commercial knowledge. He was never weary of inquiring about the markets of Europe and Asia, the ruling prices and commodities of each, the standing of commercial houses, and all other particulars that could be of use. Hence his directions to his captains and agents were always explicit and minute, and if any enterprise failed to be profitable it could generally be distinctly seen that it was because his orders had not been obeyed. In London, he became most intimately conversant with the operations of the East-India Company and with the China trade. China being the best market in the world for furs, and furnishing commodities which in America had become necessaries of life, he was quick to perceive what an advantage he would have over other merchants by sending his ships to Canton provided with furs as well as dollars. It was about the year 1800 that he sent his first ship to Canton, and he continued to carry on commerce with China for twenty-seven years, sometimes with loss, generally with profit, and occasionally with splendid and bewildering success.
It was not, however, until the year 1800, when he was worth a quarter of a million dollars, and had been in business fifteen years, that he indulged himself in the comfort of living in a house apart from his business. In 1794 he appears in the Directory as “Furrier, 149 Broadway.” From 1796 to 1799 he figures as “Fur Merchant, 149 Broadway.” In 1800 he had a storehouse at 141 Greenwich Street, and lived at 223 Broadway, on the site of the present Astor House. In 1801, his store was at 71 Liberty Street, and he had removed his residence back to 149 Broadway. The year following we find him again at 223 Broadway, where he continued to reside for a quarter of a century. His house was such as a fifth-rate merchant would now consider much beneath his dignity. Mr. Astor, indeed, had a singular dislike to living in a large house. He had neither expensive tastes nor wasteful vices. His luxuries were a pipe, a glass of beer, a game of draughts, a ride on horseback, and the theatre. Of the theatre he was particularly fond. He seldom missed a good performance in the palmy days of the “Old Park.”
It was his instinctive abhorrence of ostentation and waste that enabled him, as it were, to glide into the millionaire without being observed by his neighbors. He used to relate, with a chuckle, that he was worth a million before any one suspected it. A dandy bank-clerk, one day, having expressed a doubt as to the sufficiency of his name to a piece of mercantile paper, Astor asked him how much he thought he was worth. The clerk mentioned a sum ludicrously less than the real amount. Astor then asked him how much he supposed this and that leading merchant, whom he named, was worth. The young man endowed them with generous sum-totals proportioned to their style of living. “Well,” said Astor, “I am worth more than any of them. I will not say how much I am worth, but I am worth more than any sum you have mentioned.” “Then,” said the clerk, “you are even a greater fool than I took you for, to work as hard as you do.” The old man would tell this story with great glee, for he always liked a joke.
In the course of his long life he had frequent opportunities of observing what becomes of those gay merchants who live up to the incomes of prosperous years, regardless of the inevitable time of commercial collapse. It must be owned that he held in utter contempt the dashing style of living and doing business which has too often prevailed in New York; and he was very slow to give credit to a house that carried sail out of proportion to its ballast. Nevertheless, he was himself no plodder when plodding had ceased to be necessary. At the time when his affairs were on their greatest scale, he would leave his office at two in the afternoon, go home to an early dinner, then mount his horse and ride about the Island till it was time to go to the theatre. He had a strong aversion to illegitimate speculation, and particularly to gambling in stocks. The note-shaving and stock-jobbing operations of the Rothschilds he despised. It was his pride and boast that he gained his own fortune by legitimate commerce, and by the legitimate investment of his profits. Having an unbounded faith in the destiny of the United States, and in the future commercial supremacy of New York, it was his custom, from about the year 1800, to invest his gains in the purchase of lots and lands on Manhattan Island.
We have all heard much of the closeness, or rather the meanness, of this remarkable man. Truth compels us to admit, as we have before intimated, that he was not generous, except to his own kindred. His liberality began and ended in his own family. Very seldom during his lifetime did he willingly do a generous act outside of the little circle of his relations and descendants. To get all that he could, and to keep nearly all that he got,–those were the laws of his being. He had a vast genius for making money, and that was all that he had.
It is a pleasure to know that sometimes his extreme closeness defeated its own object. He once lost seventy thousand dollars by committing a piece of petty injustice toward his best captain. This gallant sailor, being notified by an insurance office of the necessity of having a chronometer on board his ship, spoke to Mr. Astor on the subject, who advised the captain to buy one.
“But,” said the captain, “I have no five hundred dollars to spare for such a purpose; the chronometer should belong to the ship.”
“Well,” said the merchant, “you need not pay for it now; pay for it at your convenience.”
The captain still objecting, Astor, after a prolonged higgling, authorized him to buy a chronometer, and charge it to the ship’s account; which was done. Sailing-day was at hand. The ship was hauled into the stream. The captain, as is the custom, handed in his account. Astor, subjecting it to his usual close scrutiny, observed the novel item of five hundred dollars for the chronometer. He objected, averring that it was understood between them that the captain was to pay for the instrument. The worthy sailor recalled the conversation, and firmly held to his recollection of it. Astor insisting on his own view of the matter, the captain was so profoundly disgusted that, important as the command of the ship was to him, he resigned his post. Another captain was soon found, and the ship sailed for China. Another house, which was then engaged in the China trade, knowing the worth of this “king of captains,” as Astor himself used to style him, bought him a ship and despatched him to Canton two months after the departure of Astor’s vessel. Our captain, put upon his mettle, employed all his skill to accelerate the speed of his ship, and had such success, that he reached New York with a full cargo of tea just seven days after the arrival of Mr. Astor’s ship. Astor, not expecting another ship for months, and therefore sure of monopolizing the market, had not yet broken bulk, nor even taken off the hatchways. Our captain arrived on a Saturday. Advertisements and handbills were immediately issued, and on the Wednesday morning following, as the custom then was, the auction sale of the tea began on the wharf,–two barrels of punch contributing to the _eclat_ and hilarity of the occasion. The cargo was sold to good advantage, and the market was glutted. Astor lost in consequence the entire profits of the voyage, not less than the sum named above. Meeting the captain some time after in Broadway, he said,–
“I had better have paid for that chronometer of yours.”
Without ever acknowledging that he had been in the wrong, he was glad enough to engage the captain’s future services. This anecdote we received from the worthy captain’s own lips.
On one occasion the same officer had the opportunity of rendering the great merchant a most signal service. The agent of Mr. Astor in China suddenly died at a time when the property in his charge amounted to about seven hundred thousand dollars. Our captain, who was not then in Astor’s employ, was perfectly aware that if this immense property fell into official hands, as the law required, not one dollar of it would ever again find its way to the coffers of its proprietor. By a series of bold, prompt, and skilful measures, he rescued it from the official maw, and made it yield a profit to the owner. Mr. Astor acknowledged the service. He acknowledged it with emphasis and a great show of gratitude. He said many times:–
“If you had not done just as you did, I should never have seen one dollar of my money; no, not one dollar of it.”
But he not only did not compensate him for his services, but he did not even reimburse the small sum of money which the captain had expended in performing those services. Astor was then worth ten millions, and the captain had his hundred dollars a month and a family of young children.
Thus the great merchant recompensed great services. He was not more just in rewarding small ones. On one occasion a ship of his arrived from China, which he found necessary to dispatch at once to Amsterdam, the market in New York being depressed by an over-supply of China merchandise. But on board this ship, under a mountain of tea-chests, the owner had two pipes of precious Madeira wine, which had been sent on a voyage for the improvement of its constitution.
“Can you get out that wine,” asked the owner, “without discharging the tea?”
The captain thought he could.
“Well, then,” said Mr. Astor, “you get it out, and I’ll give you a demijohn of it. You’ll say it’s the best wine you ever tasted.”
It required the labor of the whole ship’s crew for two days to get out those two pipes of wine. They were sent to the house of Mr. Astor. A year passed. The captain had been to Amsterdam and back, but he had received no tidings of his demijohn of Madeira. One day, when Mr. Astor was on board the ship, the captain ventured to remind the great man, in a jocular manner, that he had not received the wine.
“Ah!” said Astor, “don’t you know the reason? It isn’t fine yet. Wait till it is fine, and you’ll say you never tasted such Madeira.” The captain never heard of that wine again.
These traits show the moral weakness of the man. It is only when we regard his mercantile exploits that we can admire him. He was, unquestionably, one of the ablest, boldest, and most successful operators that ever lived. He seldom made a mistake in the conduct of business. Having formed his plan, he carried it out with a nerve and steadiness, with such a firm and easy grasp of all the details, that he seemed rather to be playing an interesting game than transacting business. “He could command an army of five hundred thousand men!” exclaimed one of his admirers. That was an erroneous remark. He could have commanded an army of five hundred thousand tea-chests, with a heavy auxiliary force of otter skins and beaver skins. But a commander of men must be superior morally as well as intellectually. He must be able to win the love and excite the enthusiasm of his followers. Astor would have made a splendid commissary-general to the army of Xerxes, but he could no more have conquered Greece than Xerxes himself.
The reader may be curious to know by what means Mr. Astor became so preposterously rich. Few successful men gain a single million by legitimate commerce. A million dollars is a most enormous sum of money. It requires a considerable effort of the mind to conceive it. But this indomitable little German managed, in the course of sixty years, to accumulate twenty millions; of which, probably, not more than two millions was the fruit of his business as a fur trader and China merchant.
At that day the fur trade was exceedingly profitable, as well as of vast extent. It is estimated that about the year 1800 the number of peltries annually furnished to commerce was about six millions, varying in value from fifteen cents to five hundred dollars. When every respectable man in Europe and America wore a beaver skin upon his head, or a part of one, and when a good beaver skin could be bought in Western New York for a dollar’s worth of trash, and could be sold in London for twenty-five English shillings, and when those twenty-five English shillings could be invested in English cloth and cutlery, and sold in New York for forty shillings, it may be imagined that fur-trading was a very good business. Mr. Astor had his share of the cream of it, and that was the foundation of his colossal fortune. Hence, too, the tender love he felt for a fine fur.
In the next place, his ventures to China were sometimes exceedingly fortunate. A fair profit on a voyage to China at that day was thirty thousand dollars. Mr. Astor has been known to gain seventy thousand, and to have his money in his pocket within the year. He was remarkably lucky in the war of 1812. All his ships escaped capture, and arriving at a time when foreign commerce was almost annihilated and tea had doubled in price, his gains were so immense, that the million or more lost in the Astorian enterprise gave him not even a momentary inconvenience.
At that time, too, tea merchants of large capital had an advantage which they do not now enjoy. A writer explains the manner in which the business was done in those days:–
“A house that could raise money enough thirty years ago to send $260,000 in specie, could soon have an uncommon capital, and this was the working of the old system. The Griswolds owned the ship Panama. They started her from New York in the month of May, with a cargo of perhaps $30,000 worth of ginseng, spelter, lead, iron, etc., and $170,000 in Spanish dollars. The ship goes on the voyage, reaches Whampoa in safety (a few miles below Canton). Her supercargo in two months has her loaded with tea, some china ware, a great deal of cassia or false cinnamon, and a few other articles. Suppose the cargo, mainly tea, costing about thirty-seven cents (at that time) per pound on the average.
“The duty was enormous in those days. It was twice the cost of the tea, at least: so that a tea cargo of $200,000, when it had paid duty of seventy-five cents per pound (which would be $400,000), amounted to $600,000. The profit was at least fifty per cent on the original cost, or $100,000, and would make the cargo worth $700,000.
“The cargo of teas would be sold almost on arrival (say eleven or twelve months after the ship left New York in May) to wholesale grocers, for their notes at four and six months,–say for $700,000. In those years there was _credit given by the United States_ of nine, twelve, and eighteen months! So that the East-India or Canton merchant, after his ship had made one voyage, had the use of government capital to the extent of $400,000, on the ordinary cargo of a China ship.
“No sooner had the ship Panama arrived (or any of the regular East-Indiamen), than her cargo would be exchanged for grocers’ notes for $700,000. These notes could be turned into specie very easily, and the owner had only to pay his bonds for $400,000 duty, at nine, twelve, and eighteen months, giving him time actually to send two more ships with $200,000 each to Canton, and have them back again in New York before the bonds on the first cargo were due.
“John Jacob Astor at one period of his life had several vessels operating in this way. They would go to the Pacific (Oregon) and carry from thence furs to Canton. These would be sold at large profits. Then the cargoes of tea to New York would pay enormous duties, which Astor did not have to pay to the United States for a year and a half. His tea cargoes would be sold for good four and six months paper, or perhaps cash; so that for eighteen or twenty years John Jacob Astor had what was actually a free-of-interest loan from Government of over _five millions_ of dollars.”[1]
But it was neither his tea trade nor his fur trade that gave Astor twenty millions of dollars. It was his sagacity in investing his profits that made him the richest man in America. When he first trod the streets of New York, in 1784, the city was a snug, leafy place of twenty-five thousand inhabitants, situated at the extremity of the Island, mostly below Cortlandt Street. In 1800, when he began to have money to invest, the city had more than doubled in population, and had advanced nearly a mile up the Island. Now, Astor was a shrewd calculator of the future. No reason appeared why New York should not repeat this doubling game and this mile of extension every fifteen years. He acted upon the supposition, and fell into the habit of buying lands and lots just beyond the verge of the city. One little anecdote will show the wisdom of this proceeding. He sold a lot in the vicinity of Wall Street, about the year 1810, for eight thousand dollars, which was supposed to be somewhat under its value. The purchaser, after the papers were signed, seemed disposed to chuckle over his bargain.
“Why, Mr. Astor,” said he, “in a few years this lot will be worth twelve thousand dollars.”
“Very true,” replied Astor; “but now you shall see what I will do with this money. With eight thousand dollars I buy eighty lots above Canal Street. By the time your lot is worth twelve thousand dollars, my eighty lots will be worth eighty thousand dollars”; which proved to be the fact.
His purchase of the Richmond Hill estate of Aaron Burr was a case in point. He bought the hundred and sixty acres at a thousand dollars an acre, and in twelve years the land was worth fifteen hundred dollars a lot. In the course of time the Island was dotted all over with Astor lands,–to such an extent that the whole income of his estate for fifty years could be invested in new houses without buying any more land.
His land speculations, however, were by no means confined to the little Island of Manhattan. Aged readers cannot have forgotten the most celebrated of all his operations of this kind, by which he acquired a legal title to one third of the county of Putnam in this State. This enormous tract was part of the estate of Roger Morris and Mary his wife, who, by adhering to the King of Great Britain in the Revolutionary War, forfeited their landed property in the State of New York. Having been duly attainted as public enemies, they fled to England at the close of the war, and the State sold their lands, in small parcels, to honest Whig farmers. The estate comprised fifty-one thousand one hundred and two acres, upon which were living, in 1809, more than seven hundred families, all relying upon the titles which the State of New York had given. Now Mr. Astor stepped forward to disturb the security of this community of farmers. It appeared, and was proved beyond doubt, that Roger and Mary Morris had only possessed a _life-interest_ in this estate, and that, therefore, it was only that life-interest which the State could legally confiscate. The moment Roger and Mary Morris ceased to live, the property would fall to their heirs, with all the houses, barns, and other improvements thereon. After a most thorough examination of the papers by the leading counsel of that day, Mr. Astor bought the rights of the heirs, in 1809, for twenty thousand pounds sterling. At that time Roger Morris was no more; and Mary his wife was nearly eighty, and extremely infirm. She lingered, however, for some years; and it was not till after the peace of 1815 that the claims of Mr. Astor were pressed. The consternation of the farmers and the astonishment of the people generally, when at length the great millionaire stretched out his hand to pluck this large ripe pear, may be imagined. A great clamor arose against him. It cannot be denied, however, that he acted in this business with moderation and dignity. Upon the first rumor of his claim, in 1814, commissioners were appointed by the Legislature to inquire into it. These gentlemen, finding the claim more formidable than had been suspected, asked Mr. Astor for what sum he would compromise. The lands were valued at six hundred and sixty-seven thousand dollars, but Astor replied that he would sell his claim for three hundred thousand. The offer was not accepted, and the affair lingered. In 1818, Mary Morris being supposed to be at the point of death, and the farmers being in constant dread of the writs of ejectment which her death would bring upon them, commissioners were again appointed by the Legislature to look into the matter. Again Mr. Astor was asked upon what terms he would compromise. He replied, January 19, 1819:–
“In 1813 or 1814 a similar proposition was made to me by the commissioners then appointed by the Honorable the Legislature of this State, when I offered to compromise for the sum of three hundred thousand dollars, which, considering the value of the property in question, was thought very reasonable; and, at the present period, when the life of Mrs. Morris is, according to calculation, worth little or nothing, she being near eighty-six years of age, and the property more valuable than it was in 1813, I am still willing to receive the amount which I then stated, with interest on the same, payable in money or stock, bearing an interest of–per cent, payable quarterly. The stock may be made payable at such periods as the Honorable the Legislature may deem proper. This offer will, I trust, be considered as liberal, and as a proof of my willingness to compromise on terms which are reasonable, considering the value of the property, the price which it cost me, and the inconvenience of having so long laid out of my money, which, if employed in commercial operations, would most likely have produced better profits.”
The Legislature were not yet prepared to compromise. It was not till 1827 that a test case was selected and brought to trial before a jury. The most eminent counsel were employed on the part of the State,–Daniel Webster and Martin Van Buren among them. Astor’s cause was entrusted to Emmet, Ogden, and others. We believe that Aaron Burr was consulted on the part of Mr. Astor, though he did not appear in the trial. The efforts of the array of counsel employed by the State were exerted in vain to find a flaw in the paper upon which Astor’s claim mainly rested. Mr. Webster’s speech on this occasion betrays, even to the unprofessional reader, both that he had no case and that he knew he had not, for he indulged in a strain of remark that could only have been designed to prejudice, not convince, the jury.
“It is a claim for lands,” said he,
“not in their wild and forest state, but for lands the intrinsic value of which is mingled with the labor expended upon them. It is no every-day purchase, for it extends over towns and counties, and almost takes in a degree of latitude. It is a stupendous speculation. The individual who now claims it has not succeeded to it by inheritance; he has not attained it, as he did that vast wealth which no one less envies him than I do, by fair and honest exertions in commercial enterprise, but by speculation, by purchasing the forlorn hope of the heirs of a family driven from their country by a bill of attainder. By the defendants, on the contrary, the lands in question are held as a patrimony. They have labored for years to improve them. The rugged hills had grown green under their cultivation before a question was raised as to the integrity of their titles.”
A line of remark like this would appeal powerfully to a jury of farmers. Its effect, however, was destroyed by the simple observation of one of the opposing counsel:–
“Mr. Astor bought this property confiding in the justice of the State of New York, firmly believing that in the litigation of his claim his rights would be maintained.”
It is creditable to the administration of justice in New York, and creditable to the very institution of trial by jury, that Mr. Astor’s most unpopular and even odious cause was triumphant. Warned by this verdict, the Legislature consented to compromise on Mr. Astor’s own terms. The requisite amount of “Astor stock,” as it was called, was created. Mr. Astor received about half a million of dollars, and the titles of the lands were secured to their rightful owners.
The crowning glory of Mr. Astor’s mercantile career was that vast and brilliant enterprise which Washington Irving has commemorated in “Astoria.” No other single individual has ever set on foot a scheme so extensive, so difficult, and so costly as this; nor has any such enterprise been carried out with such sustained energy and perseverance. To establish a line of trading-posts from St. Louis to the Pacific, a four-months’ journey in a land of wilderness, prairie, mountain, and desert, inhabited by treacherous or hostile savages; to found a permanent settlement on the Pacific coast as the grand _depot_ of furs and supplies; to arrange a plan by which the furs collected should be regularly transported to China, and the ships return to New York laden with tea and silks, and then proceed once more to the Pacific coast to repeat the circuit; to maintain all the parts of this scheme without the expectation of any but a remote profit, sending ship after ship before any certain intelligence of the first ventures had arrived,–this was an enterprise which had been memorable if it had been undertaken by a wealthy corporation or a powerful government, instead of a private merchant, unaided by any resources but his own. At every moment in the conduct of this magnificent attempt Mr. Astor appears the great man. His parting instructions to the captain of his first ship call to mind those of General Washington to St. Clair on a similar occasion. “All the accidents that have yet happened,” said the merchant, “arose from too much confidence in the Indians.” The ship was lost, a year after, by the disregard of this last warning. When the news reached New York of the massacre of the crew and the blowing-up of the ship, the man who flew into a passion at seeing a little boy drop a wineglass behaved with a composure that was the theme of general admiration. He attended the theatre the same evening, and entered heartily into the play. Mr. Irving relates that a friend having expressed surprise at this, Mr. Astor replied:–
“What would you have me do? Would you have me stay at home and weep for what I cannot help?”
This was not indifference; for when, after nearly two years of weary waiting, he heard of the safety and success of the overland expedition, he was so overjoyed that he could scarcely contain himself.
“I felt ready,” said he, “to fall upon my knees in a transport of gratitude.”
A touch in one of his letters shows the absolute confidence he felt in his own judgment and abilities, a confidence invariably exhibited by men of the first executive talents.
“Were I on the spot,” he wrote to one of his agents when the affairs of the settlement appeared desperate,
“and had the management of affairs, I would defy them all; but, as it is, everything depends upon you and the friends about you. Our enterprise is grand and deserves success, and I hope in God it will meet it. If my object was merely gain of money, I should say: ‘Think whether it is best to save what we can and abandon the place’; but the thought is like a dagger to my heart.”
He intimates here that his object was not merely “gain of money.” What was it, then? Mr. Irving informs us that it was desire of fame. We should rather say that when nature endows a man with a remarkable gift she also implants within him the love of exercising it. Astor loved to plan a vast, far-reaching enterprise. He loved it as Morphy loves to play chess, as Napoleon loved to plan a campaign, as Raphael loved to paint, and Handel to compose.
The war of 1812 foiled the enterprise. “But for that war,” Mr. Astor used to say, “I should have been the richest man that ever lived.” He expected to go on expending money for several years, and then to gain a steady annual profit of millions. It was, however, that very war that enabled him to sustain the enormous losses of the enterprise without injury to his estate, or even a momentary inconvenience. During the first year of the war he had the luck to receive two or three cargoes of tea from China, despite the British cruisers. In the second year of the war, when the Government was reduced to borrow at eighty, he invested largely in the loan, which, one year after the peace, stood at one hundred and twenty.
Mr. Astor at all times was a firm believer in the destiny of the United States. In other words, he held its public stock in profound respect. He had little to say of politics, but he was a supporter of the old Whig party for many years, and had a great regard, personal and political, for its leader and ornament, Henry Clay. He was never better pleased than when he entertained Mr. Clay at his own house. It ought to be mentioned in this connection that when, in June, 1812, the merchants of New York memorialized the Government in favor of the embargo, which almost annihilated the commerce of the port, the name of John Jacob Astor headed the list of signatures.
He was an active business man in this city for about forty-six years,–from his twenty-first to his sixty-seventh year. Toward the year 1830 he began to withdraw from business, and undertook no new enterprises, except such as the investment of his income involved. His three daughters were married. His son and heir was a man of thirty. Numerous grandchildren were around him, for whom he manifested a true German fondness; not, however, regarding them with equal favor. He dispensed, occasionally, a liberal hospitality at his modest house, though that hospitality was usually bestowed upon men whose presence at his table conferred distinction upon him who sat at the head of it. He was fond, strange as it may seem, of the society of literary men. For Washington Irving he always professed a warm regard, liked to have him at his house, visited him, and made much of him. Fitz-Greene Halleck, one of the best talkers of his day, a man full of fun, anecdote, and fancy, handsome, graceful, and accomplished, was a great favorite with him. He afterward invited the poet to reside with him and take charge of his affairs, which Mr. Halleck did for many years, to the old gentleman’s perfect satisfaction. Still later Dr. Cogswell won his esteem, and was named by him Librarian of the Astor Library. For his own part, though he rather liked to be read to in his latter days, he collected no library, no pictures, no objects of curiosity. As he had none of the wasteful vices, so also he had none of the costly tastes. Like all other rich men, he was beset continually by applicants for pecuniary aid, especially by his own countrymen. As a rule he refused to give: and he was right. He held beggary of all descriptions in strong contempt, and seemed to think that, in this country, want and fault are synonymous. Nevertheless, we are told that he did, now and then, bestow small sums in charity, though we have failed to get trustworthy evidence of a single instance of his doing so. It is, no doubt, absolutely necessary for a man who is notoriously rich to guard against imposture, and to hedge himself about against the swarms of solicitors who pervade a large and wealthy city. If he did not, he would be overwhelmed and devoured. His time would be all consumed and his estate squandered in satisfying the demands of importunate impudence. Still, among the crowd of applicants there is here and there one whose claim upon the aid of the rich man is just. It were much to be desired that a way should be devised by which these meritorious askers could be sifted from the mass, and the nature of their requests made known to men who have the means and the wish to aid such. Some kind of Benevolent Intelligence Office appears to be needed among us. In the absence of such an institution we must not be surprised that men renowned for their wealth convert themselves into human porcupines, and erect their defensive armor at the approach of every one who carries a subscription-book. True, a generous man might establish a private bureau of investigation; but a generous man is not very likely to acquire a fortune of twenty millions. Such an accumulation of wealth is just as wise as if a man who had to walk ten miles on a hot day should, of his own choice, carry on his back a large sack of potatoes. A man of superior sense and feeling will not waste his life so, unless he has in view a grand public object. On the contrary, he will rather do as Franklin did, who, having acquired at the age of forty-two a modest competence, sold out his thriving business on easy terms to a younger man, and devoted the rest of his happy life to the pursuit of knowledge and the service of his country. But we cannot all be Franklins. In the affairs of the world millionaires are as indispensable as philosophers; and it is fortunate for society that some men take pleasure in heaping up enormous masses of capital.
Having retired from business, Mr. Astor determined to fulfil the vow of his youth, and build in Broadway a house larger and costlier than any it could then boast. Behold the result in the Astor House, which remains to this day one of our most solid, imposing, and respectable structures. The ground on which the hotel stands was covered with substantial three-story brick houses, one of which Astor himself occupied; and it was thought at the time a wasteful and rash proceeding to destroy them. Old Mr. Coster, a retired merchant of great wealth, who lived next door to Mr. Astor’s residence, was extremely indisposed to remove, and held out long against every offer of the millionaire. His house was worth thirty thousand dollars. Astor offered him that sum; but the offer was very positively declined, and the old gentleman declared it to be his intention to spend the remainder of his days in the house. Mr. Astor offered forty thousand without effect. At length the indomitable projector revealed his purpose to his neighbor.
“Mr. Coster,” said he, “I want to build a hotel. I have got all the other lots; now name your own price.”
To which Coster replied by confessing the real obstacle to the sale.
“The fact is,” said he, “I can’t sell unless Mrs. Coster consents. If she is willing, I’ll sell for sixty thousand, and you can call to-morrow morning and ask her.”
Mr. Astor presented himself at the time named.
“Well, Mr. Astor,” said the lady in the tone of one who was conferring a very great favor for nothing, “we are such old friends that I am willing for your sake.”
So the house was bought, and with the proceeds Mr. Coster built the spacious granite mansion a mile up Broadway, which is now known as Barnum’s Museum. Mr. Astor used to relate this story with great glee. He was particularly amused at the simplicity of the old lady in considering it a great favor to him to sell her house at twice its value. It was at this time that he removed to a wide, two-story brick house opposite Niblo’s, the front door of which bore a large silver plate, exhibiting to awestruck passers-by the words: “MR. ASTOR.” Soon after the hotel was finished, he made a present of it to his eldest son, or, in legal language, he sold it to him for the sum of one dollar, “to him in hand paid.”
In the decline of his life, when his vast fortune was safe from the perils of business, he was still as sparing in his personal expenditures, as close in his bargains, as watchful over his accumulations as he had been when economy was essential to his solvency and progress. He enjoyed keenly the consciousness, the feeling of being rich. The roll-book of his possessions was his Bible. He scanned it fondly, and saw with quiet but deep delight the catalogue of his property lengthening from month to month. The love of accumulation grew with his years until it ruled him like a tyrant. If at fifty he possessed his millions, at sixty-five his millions possessed him. Only to his own children and to their children was he liberal; and his liberality to them was all arranged with a view to keeping his estate in the family, and to cause it at every moment to tend toward a final consolidation in one enormous mass. He was ever considerate for the comfort of his imbecile son. One of his last enterprises was to build for him a commodious residence.
In 1832, one of his daughters having married a European nobleman, he allowed himself the pleasure of a visit to her. He remained abroad till 1835, when he hurried home in consequence of the disturbance in financial affairs, caused by General Jackson’s war upon the Bank of the United States. The captain of the ship in which he sailed from Havre to New York has related to us some curious incidents of the voyage. Mr. Astor reached Havre when the ship, on the point of sailing, had every state-room engaged; but he was so anxious to get home, that the captain, who had commanded ships for him in former years, gave up to him his own state-room. Head winds and boisterous seas kept the vessel beating about and tossing in the channel for many days. The great man was very sick and still more alarmed. At length, being persuaded that he should not survive the voyage, he asked the captain to run in and set him ashore on the coast of England. The captain dissuaded him. The old man urged his request at every opportunity, and said at last: “I give you tousand dollars to put me aboard a pilot-boat.” He was so vehement and importunate, that one day the captain, worried out of all patience, promised that if he did not get out of the Channel before the next morning, he would run in and put him ashore. It happened that the wind changed in the afternoon and wafted the ship into the broad ocean. But the troubles of the sea-sick millionaire had only just begun. A heavy gale of some days’ duration blew the vessel along the western coast of Ireland. Mr. Astor, thoroughly panic-stricken, now offered the captain ten thousand dollars if he would put him ashore anywhere on the wild and rocky coast of the Emerald Isle. In vain the captain remonstrated. In vain he reminded the old gentleman of the danger of forfeiting his insurance.
“Insurance!” exclaimed Astor, “can’t I insure your ship myself?”
In vain the captain mentioned the rights of the other passengers. In vain he described the solitary and rock-bound coast, and detailed the difficulties and dangers which attended its approach. Nothing would appease him. He said he would take all the responsibility, brave all the perils, endure all the consequences; only let him once more feel the firm ground under his feet. The gale having abated, the captain yielded to his entreaties, and engaged, if the other passengers would consent to the delay, to stand in and put him ashore. Mr. Astor went into the cabin and proceeded to write what was expected to be a draft for ten thousand dollars in favor of the owners of the ship on his agent in New York. He handed to the captain the result of his efforts. It was a piece of paper covered with writing that was totally illegible.
“What is this?” asked the captain.
“A draft upon my son for ten thousand dollars,” was the reply.
“But no one can read it.”
“O yes, my son will know what it is. My hand trembles so that I cannot write any better.”
“But,” said the captain,
“you can at least write your name. I am acting for the owners of the ship, and I cannot risk their property for a piece of paper that no one can read. Let one of the gentlemen draw up a draft in proper form; you sign it; and I will put you ashore.”
The old gentleman would not consent to this mode of proceeding, and the affair was dropped.
A favorable wind blew the ship swiftly on her way, and Mr. Astor’s alarm subsided. But even on the banks of Newfoundland, two thirds of the way across, when the captain went upon the poop to speak a ship bound for Liverpool, old Astor climbed up after him, saying, “Tell them I give tousand dollars if they take a passenger.”
Astor lived to the age of eighty-four. During the last few years of his life his faculties were sensibly impaired; he was a child again. It was, however, while his powers and his judgment were in full vigor that he determined to follow the example of Girard, and bequeath a portion of his estate for the purpose of “rendering a public benefit to the city of New York.” He consulted Mr. Irving, Mr. Halleck, Dr. Cogswell, and his own son with regard to the object of this bequest. All his friends concurred in recommending a public library; and, accordingly, in 1839, he added the well-known codicil to his will which consecrated four hundred thousand dollars to this purpose. To Irving’s Astoria and to the Astor Library he will owe a lasting fame in the country of his adoption.
The last considerable sum he was ever known to give away was a contribution to aid the election to the Presidency of his old friend Henry Clay. The old man was always fond of a compliment, and seldom averse to a joke. It was the timely application of a jocular compliment that won from him this last effort of generosity. When the committee were presented to him, he began to excuse himself, evidently intending to decline giving.
“I am not now interested in these things,” said he.
“Those gentlemen who are in business, and whose property depends upon the issue of the election, ought to give. But I am now an old man. I haven’t anything to do with commerce, and it makes no difference to me what the government does. I don’t make money any more, and haven’t any concern in the matter.”
One of the committee replied:
“Why, Mr. Astor, you are like Alexander, when he wept because there were no more worlds to conquer. You have made all the money, and now there is no more money to make.” The old eye twinkled at the blended compliment and jest.
“Ha, ha, ha! very good, that’s very good. Well, well, I give you something.”
Whereupon he drew his check for fifteen hundred dollars.
When all else had died within him, when he was at last nourished like an infant at a woman’s breast, and when, being no longer able to ride in a carriage, he was daily tossed in blanket for exercise, he still retained a strong interest in the care and increase of his property. His agent called daily upon him to render a report of moneys received. One morning this gentleman chanced to enter his room while he was enjoying his blanket exercise. The old man cried out from the middle of his blanket,–
“Has Mrs. —- paid that rent yet?”
“No,” replied the agent.
“Well, but she must pay it,” said the poor old man.
“Mr. Astor,” rejoined the agent, “she can’t pay it now; she has had misfortunes, and we must give her time.”
“No, no,” said Astor; “I tell you she can pay it, and she will pay it. You don’t go the right way to work with her.”
The agent took leave, and mentioned the anxiety of the old gentleman with regard to this unpaid rent to his son, who counted out the requisite sum, and told the agent to give it to the old man as if he had received it from the tenant.
“There!” exclaimed Mr. Astor when he received the money, “I told you she would pay it, if you went the right way to work with her.”
Who would have twenty millions at such a price?
On the twenty-ninth of March, 1848, of old age merely, in the presence of his family and friends, without pain or disquiet, this remarkable man breathed his last. He was buried in a vault in the church of St. Thomas in Broadway. Though he expressly declared in his will that he was a member of the Reformed German Congregation, no clergyman of that church took part in the services of his funeral. The unusual number of six Episcopal Doctors of Divinity assisted at the ceremony. A bishop could have scarcely expected a more distinguished funeral homage. Such a thing it is in a commercial city to die worth twenty millions! The pall-bearers were Washington Irving, Philip Hone, Sylvanus Miller, James G. King, Isaac Bell, David B. Ogden, Thomas J. Oakley, Ramsey Crooks, and Jacob B. Taylor.
The public curiosity with regard to the will of the deceased millionaire was fully gratified by the enterprise of the Herald, which published it entire in five columns of its smallest type a day or two after the funeral. The ruling desires of Mr. Astor with regard to his property were evidently these two: 1. To provide amply and safely for his children, grandchildren, nephews, and nieces; 2. To keep his estate, as much as was consistent with his desire, in one mass in the hands of his eldest son. His brother Henry, the butcher, had died childless and rich, leaving his property to Mr. William B. Astor. To the descendants of the brother in Germany Mr. Astor left small but sufficient pensions.
To many of his surviving children and grandchildren in America he left life-interests and stocks, which seem designed to produce an average of about fifteen thousand dollars a year. Other grandsons were to have twenty-five thousand dollars on reaching the age of twenty-five, and the same sum when they were thirty. His favorite grandson, Charles Astor Bristed, since well known to the public as an author and poet, was left amply provided for. He directed his executors to “provide for my unfortunate son, John Jacob Astor, and to procure for him all the comforts which his condition does or may require.” For this purpose ten thousand dollars a year was directed to be appropriated, and the house built for him in Fourteenth Street, near Ninth Avenue, was to be his for life. If he should be restored to the use of his faculties, he was to have an income of one hundred thousand dollars. The number of persons, all relatives or connections of the deceased, who were benefited by the will, was about twenty-five. To his old friend and manager, Fitz-Greene Halleck, he left the somewhat ridiculous annuity of two hundred dollars, which Mr. William B. Astor voluntarily increased to fifteen hundred. Nor was this the only instance in which the heir rectified the errors and supplied the omissions of the will. He had the justice, to send a considerable sum to the brave old captain who saved for Mr. Astor the large property in China imperilled by the sudden death of an agent. The minor bequests and legacies of Mr. Astor absorbed about two millions of his estate. The rest of his property fell to his eldest son, under whose careful management it is supposed to have increased to an amount not less than forty millions. This may, however, be an exaggeration. Mr. William B. Astor minds his own business, and does not impart to others the secrets of his rent-roll. The number of his houses in this city is said to be seven hundred and twenty.
The bequests of Mr. Astor for purposes of benevolence show good sense and good feeling. The Astor Library fund of four hundred thousand dollars was the largest item. Next in amount was fifty thousand dollars for the benefit of the poor of his native village in Germany. “To the German Society of New York,” continued the will,
“I give thirty thousand dollars on condition of their investing it in bond and mortgage, and applying it for the purpose of keeping an office and giving advice and information without charge to all emigrants arriving here, and for the purpose of protecting them against imposition.”
To the Home for Aged Ladies he gave thirty thousand dollars, and to the Blind Asylum and the Half-Orphan Asylum each five thousand dollars. To the German Reformed Congregation, “of which I am a member,” he left the moderate sum of two thousand dollars. These objects were wisely chosen. The sums left for them, also, were in many-cases of the amount most likely to be well employed. Twenty-five thousand dollars he left to Columbia College, but unfortunately repented, and annulled the bequest in a codicil.
We need not enlarge on the success which has attended the bequest for the Astor Library,–a bequest to which Mr. William B. Astor has added, in land, books, and money, about two hundred thousand dollars. It is the ornament and boast of the city. Nothing is wanting to its complete utility but an extension of the time of its being accessible to the public. Such a library, in such a city as this, should be open at sunrise, and close at ten in the evening. If but _one_ studious youth should desire to avail himself of the morning hours before going to his daily work, the interests of that one would justify the directors in opening the treasures of the library at the rising of the sun. In the evening, of course, the library would probably be attended by a greater number of readers than in all the hours of the day together.
The bequest to the village of Waldorf has resulted in the founding of an institution that appears to be doing a great deal of good in a quiet German manner. The German biographer of Mr. Astor, from whom we have derived some particulars of his early life, expatiates upon the merits of this establishment, which, he informs us, is called the Astor House.
“Certain knowledge,” he says,
“of Astor’s bequest reached Waldorf only in 1850, when a nephew of Mr. Astor’s and one of the executors of his will appeared from New York in the testator’s native town with power to pay over the money to the proper persons. He kept himself mostly in Heidelberg, and organized a supervisory board to aid in the disposition of the funds in accordance with the testator’s intentions. This board was to have its head-quarters in Heidelberg, and was to consist of professors in the University there, and clergymen, not less than five in all. The board of control, however, consists of the clergy of Waldorf, the burgomaster, the physician, a citizen named every three years by the Common Council, and the governor of the Institution, who must be a teacher by profession. This latter board has control of all the interior arrangements of the Institution, and the care of the children and beneficiaries. The leading objects of the Astor House are: 1. The care of the poor, who, through age, disease, or other causes, are incapable of labor; 2. The rearing and instruction of poor children, especially those who live in Waldorf. Non-residents are received if there is room, but they must make compensation for their board and instruction. Children are received at the age of six, and maintained until they are fifteen or sixteen. Besides school instruction, there is ample provision for physical culture. They are trained in active and industrious habits, and each of them, according to his disposition, is to be taught a trade, or instructed in agriculture, market-gardening, the care of vineyards, or of cattle, with a view to rendering them efficient farm-servants or stewards. It is also in contemplation to assist the blind and the deaf and dumb, and, finally, to establish a nursery for very young children left destitute. Catholics and Protestants are admitted on equal terms, religious differences not being recognized in the applicants for admission. Some time having elapsed before the preliminary arrangements were completed, the accumulated interest of the fund went so far toward paying for the buildings, that of the original fifty thousand dollars not less than forty-three thousand have been permanently invested for the support of the Institution.”
Thus they manage bequests in Germany! The Astor House was opened with much ceremony, January 9,1854, the very year in which the Astor Library was opened to the public in the city of New York. The day of the founder’s death is annually celebrated in the chapel of the Institution, which is adorned by his portrait.
These two institutions will carry the name of John Jacob Astor to the latest generations. But they are not the only services which he rendered to the public. It would be absurd to contend that in accumulating his enormous estate, and in keeping it almost entirely in the hands of his eldest son, he was actuated by a regard for the public good. He probably never thought of the public good in connection with the bulk of his property. Nevertheless, America is so constituted that every man in it of force and industry is necessitated to be a public servant. If this colossal fortune had been gained in Europe it would probably have been consumed in what is there called “founding a family.” Mansions would have been built with it, parks laid out, a title of nobility purchased; and the income, wasted in barren and stupid magnificence would have maintained a host of idle, worthless, and pampered menials. Here, on the contrary, it is expended almost wholly in providing for the people of New York the very commodity of which they stand in most pressing need; namely, _new houses_. The simple reason why the rent of a small house in New York is two thousand dollars a year is, because the supply of houses is unequal to the demand. We need at this moment five thousand more houses in the city of New York for the decent accommodation of its inhabitants at rents which they can afford to pay. The man who does more than any one else to supply the demand for houses is the patient, abstemious, and laborious heir of the Astor estate. He does a good day’s work for us in this business every day, and all the wages he receives for so much care and toil is a moderate subsistence for himself and his family, and the very troublesome reputation of being the richest man in America. And the business is done with the minimum of waste in every department. In a quiet little office in Prince Street, the manager of the estate, aided by two or three aged clerks (one of them of fifty-five years’ standing in the office), transacts the business of a property larger than that of many sovereign princes. Everything, also, is done promptly and in the best manner. If a tenant desires repairs or alterations, an agent calls at the house within twenty-four hours, makes the requisite inquiries, reports, and the work is forthwith begun, or the tenant is notified that it will not be done. The concurrent testimony of Mr. Astor’s tenants is, that he is one of the most liberal and obliging of landlords.
So far, therefore, the Astor estate, immense as it is, appears to have been an unmixed good to the city in which it is mainly invested. There is every reason to believe that, in the hands of the next heir, it will continue to be managed with the same prudence and economy that mark the conduct of its present proprietor. We indulge the hope that either the present or some future possessor may devote a portion of his vast revenue to the building of a new order of tenement houses, on a scale that will enable a man who earns two dollars a day to occupy apartments fit for the residence of a family of human beings. The time is ripe for it. May we live to see in some densely populated portion of the city, a new and grander ASTOR HOUSE arise, that shall demonstrate to the capitalists of every city in America that nothing will pay better as an investment than HOUSES FOR THE PEOPLE, which snail afford to an honest laborer rooms in a clean, orderly, and commodious palace, at the price he now pays for a corner of a dirty fever-breeding barrack!
[Footnote 1: Old Merchants of New York. First Series.]