John Jacob Astor: Wealthy Merchant and Fur Trader

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He reached New York in March 1784, and perhaps no 21-year-old approaching the metropolis has ever been more determined to make his fortune than John Jacob Astor; certainly few have more completely fulfilled their ambition.

Around 1785 he married Sarah Todd, who was connected to one of the old Dutch families. To the marriage she brought a dowry of $300.00, a keen business sense, and an expert eye for furs. It may have been the dowry that enabled Astor to set up a shop of his own, for in 1786 he opened a store on Water Street where he sold musical instruments and bought furs. The Astors tended strictly to business, living frugally, and devoting themselves almost exclusively to making money. Astor himself often left the shop in his wife’s care while he went off to the frontier.

Within a few years he knew the fur trade well and had established connections, not only throughout the American Northwest territories, but also in Montreal, which was the heart of the trade. He gained a great advantage over his competitors in 1796 when Jay’s Treaty, between the United States and Great Britain, was put into force. Prior to that it had been agreed that neither British nor American traders were to be hindered by the international boundary. Jay’s Treaty did away with that; the British were already beginning their time-honored practice of seeking American friendship at Canada’s expense, and the Canadian fur traders were left in the lurch.

Their misfortune was Astor’s gain. He and the United States would expand together. Astor not only took over territory that had been closed to the Canadians, he was then clever enough to make a deal with the Northwest Company so that he could import goods through them. Thanks to the treaty makers, he was able to insert himself into the American end of the Canadian trade. By 1800, Astor was recognized as the leading American merchant in the fur trade and was thought to be worth a quarter of a million dollars. He was still only beginning.

By now Astor was starting to act and look like a comfortable capitalist. He moved into a new house in New York City and established worldwide connections, becoming the very picture of early nineteenth-century American merchant enterprise. His horizons were always expanding, at least as far as profits were concerned.

Soon after the turn of the century, he became interested in the Orient. American ships were just starting their China trade, and Astor, on a visit to London, obtained from a friend a license to trade in any East India Company port. Armed with this mandate, Astor persuaded another friend in New York to join in his venture, and they sent a trade ship to Canton, China. When it returned successfully, Astor’s share of the profit was $50,000. New vistas were opening up before him, though fur was still his primary interest. Part of his profit from the venture into China went into the purchase of real estate in New York City, property that later proved to be the real basis of the Astor fortune.

Some thought the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 was an act of folly for the young republic, but Astor was not one of them. With that immense territory under United States control, it became possible to see the fur trade extending all the way to the Pacific coast. The return of the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1806 added fuel to his ambition, and by the next year he and his agents were fighting to drive the Canadian fur traders out of the upper Mississippi Valley.

These were the years of Astor’s peak activity. In 1808 he incorporated as the American Fur Company, a move that consolidated his holdings and prepared for an all-out assault on the Far West. He was not, of course, without competition, and it was actually the antagonism of the fur traders of St. Louis that led him into his most grandiose scheme.

By this time, the best fur lands were being found farther to the west. In the United States traders were in the Rockies already, and in Canada they were working to the north and toward the mountains. The increasing length of the journey from the Great Lakes area to the West cut into the profits of the trade, shortened the time that could be spent among the Indian tribes, and generally narrowed the margin on which the traders operated.

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