brother. During the first evening of his brother's stay at his house
the question was discussed, What should the young man do in his new
country? The charms of the fur business were duly portrayed by the
friend of the youth, who also expressed his preference for it. It was
agreed, at length, that the best plan would be for the young man to
seek employment with some one already in the business, in order to
learn the modes of proceeding, as well as to acquire a knowledge of
the country, The young stranger anxiously inquired how much premium
would be demanded by a furrier for teaching the business to a novice,
and he was at once astonished and relieved to learn that no such thing
was known in America, and that he might expect his board and small
wages even from the start. So, the next day, the brothers and their
friend proceeded together to the store of Robert Bowne, an aged and
benevolent Quaker, long established in the business of buying, curing,
and exporting peltries. It chanced that he needed a hand. Pleased with
the appearance and demeanor of the young man, he employed him (as
tradition reports) at two dollars a week and his board. Astor took up
his abode in his master's house, and was soon at work. We can tell the
reader with certainty what was the nature of the youth's first day's
work in his adopted country; for, in his old age, he was often heard
to say that the first thing he did for Mr. Bowne was to beat furs;
which, indeed, was his principal employment during the whole of the
following summer,--furs requiring to be frequently beaten to keep the
moths from destroying them.
Perhaps among our readers there are some who have formed the
resolution to get on in the world and become rich. We advise such to
observe how young Astor proceeded. We are far from desiring to hold up
this able man as a model for the young; yet it must be owned that in
the art of prospering in business he has had no equal in America; and
in _that_ his example may be useful. Now, observe the secret. It was
not plodding merely, though no man ever labored more steadily than he.
Mr. Bowne, discovering what a prize he had, raised his wages at the
end of the first month. Nor was it _merely_ his strict observance of
the rules of temperance and morality, though that is essential to any
worthy success. The great secret of Astor's early, rapid, and uniform
success in business appears to have been, that he acted always upon
the maxim that KNOWLEDGE IS POWER! He labored unceasingly at Mr.
Bowne's to _learn the business_. He put all his soul into the work of
getting a knowledge of furs, fur-bearing animals, fur-dealers,
fur-markets, fur-gathering Indians, fur-abounding countries. In those
days a considerable number of bear skins and beaver skins were brought
directly to Bowne's store by the Indians and countrymen of the
vicinity, who had shot or trapped the animals. These men Astor
questioned; and neglected no other opportunity of procuring the
information he desired. It used to be observed of Astor that he
absolutely loved a fine skin. In later days he would have a superior
fur hung up in his counting-room as other men hang pictures; and this,
apparently, for the mere pleasure of feeling, showing, and admiring
it. He would pass his hand fondly over it, extolling its charms with
an approach to enthusiasm; not, however, forgetting to mention that in
Canton it would bring him in five hundred dollars. So heartily did he
throw himself into his business.
Growing rapidly in the confidence of his employer, he was soon
intrusted with more important duties than the beating of furs. He was
employed in buying them from the Indians and hunters who brought them
to the city. Soon, too, he took the place of his employer in the
annual journey to Montreal, then the chief fur mart of the country.
With a pack upon his back, he struck into the wilderness above Albany,
and walked to Lake George, which he ascended in a canoe, and having
thus reached Champlain he embarked again, and sailed to the head of
that lake. Returning with his furs, he employed the Indians in
transporting them to the Hudson, and brought them to the city in a
sloop. He was formed by nature for a life like this. His frame was
capable of great endurance, and he had the knack of getting the best
of a bargain. The Indian is a great bargainer. The time was gone by
when a nail or a little red paint would induce him to part with
valuable peltries. It required skill and address on the part of the
trader, both in selecting the articles likely to tempt the vanity or
the cupidity of the red man, and in conducting the tedious negotiation
which usually preceded an exchange of commodities. It was in this kind
of traffic, doubtless, that our young German acquired that
unconquerable propensity for making hard bargains, which was so marked
a feature in his character as a merchant. He could never rise superior
to this early-acquired habit. He never knew what it was to exchange
places with the opposite party, and survey a transaction from _his_
point of view. He exulted not in compensating liberal service
liberally. In all transactions he kept in view the simple object of
giving the least and getting the most.
Meanwhile his brother Henry was flourishing. He married the beautiful
daughter of a brother butcher, and the young wife, according to the
fashion of the time, disdained not to assist her husband even in the
slaughter-house as well as in the market-place. Colonel Devoe, in his
well-known Market Book, informs us that Henry Astor was exceedingly
proud of his pretty wife, often bringing her home presents of gay
dresses and ribbons, and speaking of her as "de pink of de Bowery."
The butchers of that day complained bitterly of him, because he used
to ride out of town fifteen or twenty miles, and buy up the droves of
cattle coming to the city, which he would drive in and sell at an
advanced price to the less enterprising butchers. He gained a fortune
by his business, which would have been thought immense, if the
colossal wealth of his brother had not reduced all other estates to
comparative insignificance. It was he who bought, for eight hundred
dollars, the acre of ground on part of which the old Bowery Theatre
now stands.
John Jacob Astor remained not long in the employment of Robert Bowne.
It was a peculiarity of the business of a furrier at that day, that,
while it admitted of unlimited extension, it could be begun on the
smallest scale, with a very insignificant capital. Every farmer's boy
in the vicinity of New York had occasionally a skin to sell, and bears
abounded in the Catskill Mountains. Indeed the time had not long gone
by when beaver skins formed part of the currency of the-city. All
Northern and Western New York was still a fur-yielding country. Even
Long Island furnished its quota. So that, while the fur business was
one that rewarded the enterprise of great and wealthy companies,
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 _mélee_ 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 _éclat_ 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.