For other pages relating to Astor, see John Jacob Astor (disambiguation)
| John Jacob Astor | |
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 Photogravure from oil painting by Gilbert Stuart, 1794 |
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| Born | Johann Jakob Astor or Johann Jacob Astor July 17, 1763 Walldorf, Germany |
| Died | March 29, 1848 (aged 84) Manhattan, New York, United States |
| Resting place | Trinity Churchyard Cemetery, Manhattan |
| Occupation | Businessman |
| Net worth | ▲Estimated $110.1 Billion in 2006 Dollars[1] |
| Known for | First multi-millionaire in the United States |
| Spouse(s) | Sarah Todd Astor |
| Children | Magdalene Astor Bristed John Jacob Astor II William Backhouse Astor, Sr. Dorothee Astor Henry Astor Eliza Astor Jacob Warndorf Astor |
| Relatives | Henry Astor (brother) |
John Jacob Astor (July 17, 1763 – March 29, 1848), born Johann Jakob or Johann Jacob Astor, was the first prominent member of the Astor family and the first multi-millionaire in the United States. He was the creator of the first trust in America, from which he made his fortune in fur trading, real estate, and opium.[2]
From humble origins in Germany as a flute maker with his brother George, they emigrated to London and John Jacob then went to the United States following the American Revolutionary War. He built a fur-trading empire that extended to the Great Lakes region and Canada, and later expanded into the American West and Pacific coast. In the early 1800s he diversified into New York City real estate and later became a famed patron of the arts.
At the time of his death in 1848, Astor was the wealthiest person in the United States, leaving an estate estimated to be worth at least $20 million. According to a Forbes article, his estimated net worth as a fraction of the U.S. gross domestic product at the time would be equivalent to $110.1 billion in 2006 U.S. dollars, making him the fourth wealthiest person in American history.[1]
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John Jacob Astor's ancestors were Waldensian refugees from Savoy. He was born in Walldorf,[3][4] near Heidelberg in the old Palatinate which became part of Baden during the 19th century, Germany (currently in the Rhein-Neckar district). His father (Johann Jacob Astor) was a butcher. The son John Jacob Astor learned English in London while working for his brother, George Astor, manufacturing musical instruments.
Astor arrived in the United States in March 1784, just after the end of the Revolutionary War. He traded furs with Indians and then he started a fur goods shop in New York City in the late 1780s.
He married Sarah Todd on September 19, 1785 and once said of her that she had the best business sense of anyone he knew.
Astor took advantage of the Jay Treaty between Great Britain and the United States in 1794 which opened new markets in Canada and the Great Lakes region. By 1800 he had amassed almost a quarter of a million dollars, and had become one of the leading figures in the fur trade. In 1800, following the example of the Empress of China, the first American trading vessel to China, Astor traded furs, teas and sandalwood with Canton in China, and greatly benefited from it. The US Embargo Act in 1807, however, disrupted his import/export business. With the permission of President Jefferson, Astor established the American Fur Company on April 6, 1808. He later formed subsidiaries: the Pacific Fur Company, and the Southwest Fur Company (in which Canadians had a part), in order to control fur trading in the Columbia River and Great Lakes areas.
His Columbia River trading post at Fort Astoria (established in April 1811) was the first United States community on the Pacific coast. He financed the overland Astor Expedition in 1810–12 to reach the outpost. Members of the expedition were to discover South Pass, through which hundreds of thousands settlers on the Oregon, California and Mormon trails passed through the Rocky Mountains.
Astor's fur trading ventures were disrupted when the British captured his trading posts during the War of 1812. His business rebounded in 1817 after the U.S. Congress passed a protectionist law that barred foreign traders from U.S. territories. The American Fur Company came to dominate trading in the area around the Great Lakes. In 1822, Astor established the Astor House on Mackinac Island as headquarters for the reorganized American Fur Company, making the island a metropolis of the fur trade. A lengthy description based on documents, diaries etc. was given by Washington Irving in his travelogue Astoria.
In 1804, Astor purchased from Aaron Burr what remained of a 99-year lease on property in Manhattan. At the time, Burr was serving as vice president under Thomas Jefferson and desperately needed the purchase price of $62,500. The lease was to run until 1866. Astor began subdividing the land into nearly 250 lots and subleased them. His conditions were that the tenant could do whatever they wish with the lots for twenty-one years, after which they must renew the lease or Astor would take back the lot.
In the 1830s, John Jacob Astor foresaw that the next big boom would be the build-up of New York, which would soon emerge as one of the world’s greatest cities. Astor withdrew from the American Fur Company, as well as all his other ventures, and used the money to buy and develop large tracts of Manhattan real estate. Predicting the rapid growth northward on Manhattan Island, Astor purchased more and more land beyond the current city limits. Astor rarely built on his land, and instead let others pay rent to use it.
After retiring from his business, Astor spent the rest of his life as a patron of culture. He supported the ornithologist John James Audubon, the poet/writer Edgar Allan Poe, and the presidential campaign of Henry Clay.
At the time of his death in 1848, Astor was the wealthiest person in the United States, leaving an estate estimated to be worth at least $20 million ($501 million in today's dollars); he has been estimated to be the fourth richest American of all time, based on the ratio of his fortune to contemporary GDP.[5] In his will, he left $400,000 to build the Astor Library for the New York public (later consolidated with other libraries to form New York Public Library), as well as $50,000 for a poorhouse in his German hometown, Walldorf.
Astor left the bulk of his fortune to his second son, William Backhouse Astor, Sr. His eldest son, John Jacob II, had a mental disability and Astor left enough money to care for him for the rest of his life.
John Jacob Astor is buried in the Trinity Churchyard Cemetery in the New York City borough of Manhattan. Herman Melville used Astor as a symbol of the earliest fortunes in New York in his novella Bartleby, the Scrivener.
The pair of marble lions that sit by the entrance of the New York Public Library at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street were originally named Leo Astor and Leo Lenox, after Astor and James Lenox, who founded the library. Then they were called Lord Astor and Lady Lenox (both lions are males). Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia renamed them "Patience" and "Fortitude" during the Great Depression.
"Astor, John Jacob". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911.| Preceded by Unknown |
Richest man in the United States ?–1848 |
Succeeded by William Backhouse Astor, Sr. |
John Jacob Astor (July 17, 1763 – March 29, 1848), originally either Johann Jakob or Johann Jacob, was the first of the Astor family dynasty and the first millionaire in the United States, making his fortune in the fur trade, real estate, and opium industries.
JOHN JACOB ASTOR (1763-1848), American merchant, was born at the village of Walldorf, near Heidelberg, Germany, on the 7th of July 1763. Until he was sixteen he worked in the shop of his father, a butcher; he then joined an elder brother in London, and there for four years was employed in the piano and flute factory of an uncle, of the firm of Astor & Broadwood. In 1783 he emigrated to America, and settled in New York, whither one of his brothers had previously gone. On the voyage he became acquainted with a fur-trader, by whose advice he devoted himself to the same business, buying furs directly from the Indians, preparing them at first with his own hands for the market, and selling them in London and elsewhere at a great profit. He was also the agent in New York of the firm of Astor & Broadwood. By his energy, industry and sound judgment he gradually enlarged his operations, did business in all the fur markets of the world, and amassed an enormous fortune, - the largest up to that time made by any American. He devoted many years to carrying out a project for organizing the fur trade from the Great Lakes to the Pacific Ocean, and thence by way of the Hawaiian Islands to China and India. In 1811 he founded at the mouth of the Columbia river a settlement named after him Astoria, which was intended to serve as the central depot; but two years later the settlement was seized and occupied by the English. The incidents of this undertaking are the theme of Washington Irving's Astoria. A series of disasters frustrated the gigantic scheme. Astor made vast additions to his wealth by investments in real estate in New York City, and erected many buildings there, including the hotel known as the Astor House. The last twenty-five years of his life were spent in retirement in New York City, where he died on the 29th of March 1848, his fortune then being estimated at about $30,000,000. He made various charitable bequests by his will, and among them a gift of $50,000 to found an institution, opened as the "Astor House" in 1854, for the education of poor children and the relief of the aged and the destitute in his native village in Germany. His chief benefaction, however, was a bequest of $400,000 for the foundation and endowment of a public library in New York City, since known as the Astor library, and since 1895 part of the New York public library.
See Parton's Life of John Jacob Astor (New York, 1865).
His eldest SOH, William Backhouse Astor (1792-1875), inherited the greater part of his father's fortune, and chiefly by judicious investments in real estate greatly increased it. He was sometimes known as the "Landlord of New York." Under his direction the building for the Astor library was erected, and to the library he gave about $550,000, including a bequest of $200,000. His son, John Jacob Astor (1822-1890), was also well known as a capitalist and philanthropist, giving liberally to the Astor library.
The son of the last named, WILLIAM WALDORF ASTOR (1848), served in the New York assembly in 1877, and in the state senate in 1880-81. He was United States minister to Italy from 1882 to 1885. He published two romances, Valentine (1885) and Sforza (1889). His wealth, arising from property in New York, where also he built the New Netherland hotel and the Waldorf hotel, was enormous. In 1890 he removed to England, and in 1899 was naturalized. In 1893 he became proprietor of the Pall Mall Gazette, and afterwards started the Pall Mall Magazine.
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Categories: ASI-ATH | Biography | History of the United States
   | ''Astoria'', Author Washington Irving full text (pdf) - Astoria by Washington Irving - Free eBook |
| | Frontline show - frontline: the opium kings: Opium Throughout History | PBS |
| | American Fur Company - www.americanfurcompany.com |
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