River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1910-03-03

tations and Aston hadn't.
Hence after three years apprenticeship, Astor
knew all that did and all he himself could mag
inc besides So he resigned.
In 1876 John Astor began business on his own
account on Water street, New York.
Astor had friends with the Indians up the Hud-
son to Albany and they were acting as recruiting
agents for him.
Having collected several thousand dollars worth of
furs he shipped them London and embarked as
senger in the Storage.
In London furs were becoming fad. Astor sorted
and sfted his buyers, he had his skins He himself
dressed in a suit of fur and thus proved his ability
an advertiser. picked his and charged all the
traffic would bear All of the money he received for his
skins invested in Indian goods"-colored cloth,
beads blankets knives, and musical instruments.
His was the first store in New York that carried a
stock of musical These he sold to savages
and also he supplied the stold every
thing in this particular ne from bazoo to stradi-
varius.
When he got back to New York he at struck out
through wilderness buy furs of the Indians.
better STILL interest them in bringing furs to him.
He knew the value of friendship in trade man
of the time did.
In 1890 John Jacob Astor married Sarah Todd. Her
mother was a Brevoort and it brought about by
her coming to Aston to buy furs with which to make
herself Her ability to Judge furs and make them
up brought young Astor into the best Dutch New York
society," combination that quite exclusive then
This marriage business partnership well as
martial and proved success in every way Sarah was
worker with all the good old Dutch qualities OF pa
tience persistence, industry and economy When her
husband went trips she kept store.
Capt. Cook had skirted the Pacific coast from cape
Horn to Alaska brought the attention of the
dealing and fur wearing world the sea otter OF the
northern Pacific He also gave psychological pro-
phetic glimpse of the insidOuS seaskin sack.
In 1890 ship from the Pacific brought hundred
otter skins to York. The skins quickly sold
to London buyers at exorbitant prices
The nobility wanted sea otter, "royal American
ermine" as they called it. The scarcity doomed the
price Ships quickly fitted out and dispatched
Astor encouraged these expeditions, but at first in
vested money in them he considered them extra
hazardous He was not a Spectator
Until the year 1900 Astor lived his store in
Water street but moved to the plain and modest
house at 223 Broadway the site OF the old Astor house.
Here he lived for Is years.
The fur business simple and very profitable.
In 1900 owned three ships which he had bought
so absolutely to control his trade Ascertainng that
London reshipping furs to China, early in
directly to the orient with explicit written nsruc
tons to captain what the should be sold
for The money to be invested in teas and silks.
The ship sailed away and had been gone year
No tidings had come from her.
Suddenly messenger with the news that the
ship was in the bay. We imagine the interest OF
Mr. Astor they locked their store and ran
to the Battery. Sure enough, it was their ship
The profit this voyage $4,000.
BY 1910 John Jacob Astor worth 100000. He
began invest all his surplus money in New York real
He bought property in the vicinity of
Canal street he bought Richmond Hill, the estate
of Aaron Burr. consisted OF $50 just about
Twentythird street. He paid for the land thousand
dollars an acre. People said Astor crazy.
In ten years he began sell lots from the Richmond
property the rate of $4,000 Fortunately
for his estate sell much of the land at this
price, it is this particular dirt that makes that
vast property known "the Astor estate
During the revolutionary Roger Morris of Put
county ~ Y made the mistake OF siding with the
Tories and expressing himself too freely. mob col
lected his family escaped taking s. p to
England