John Jacob Astor: Wealthy Merchant and Fur Trader

 | American History  | one comment  |  Print This Post  |  Email This Post

Aside from the premature demise of the Pacific Fur Company, Astor had little cause to regret the War of 1812. His own interest in it, as always, was economic profit. Because of connections in Washington, D.C., he was able to secure concessions allowing him, in effect, to continue the fur trade in Canada throughout the war.

During the conflict, Astor bought up Canadian furs at a better price and less risk than London merchants and made enormous profits from them in New York. Ostensibly these furs were from American property owned in the Northwest at the time of the outbreak of war. In 1812, Astor amassed $50,000 worth of raw furs. That was his poorest year of the war.

The fur trade continued to be basic to his interests, but he never let his profits lie idle. By the end of the war, the United States government was on the brink of bankruptcy. Astor’s response, together with a consortium of associates from Philadelphia, was to buy high-interest bonds with debased currency, and he emerged from the war in far better shape than the Federal Government. At the same time, he enlarged his New York City holdings so that by the time peace was made, Astor was immensely wealthy and ready to take over virtually the whole of the American fur trade.

Now, Astor again looked beyond the Mississippi River to the West. He helped persuade Congress in 1816 to pass an act excluding Canadians from the American fur trade unless employed by an American company. Astor then bought out the holdings of the Northwest Company inside American territory for a fraction of its worth. The company was at that point engaged in a struggle with the Hudson’s Bay Company and was in no condition to defend itself.

Five years later, trading competition in the Missouri River country was all but nonexistent, leaving the area practically free for Astor. The St. Louis interests tried to fight him for a while, but they lacked the strength for a long contest and were finally absorbed. Astor pushed farther west yet and challenged Jim Bridger’s Rocky Mountain Fur Company for its territory. This was a hard-fought and vigorous contest; Bridger and his people knew their country, were effective traders, and were nearly as unscrupulous as Astor’s men.

By the late 1820s, the fur trade was beginning to die. Geography and economics were working against it. The distances and costs were becoming too great for the returns, and in Europe styles were changing and the price of furs was in decline. Perhaps because his business acumen never left him, or because he was getting tired, Astor determined to leave the trade, and in June 1834, he sold all of his commercial interests. He spent the last 14 years of his life administering his estate, until his death in 1848.

If his astuteness never left him, neither did his love of money. He died the richest man in America by far, leaving an estate estimated at more than $20,000,000. Washington Irving thought him a great man; Astor’s official biographer, James Parton, considered him ruthless and selfish, but added, he was ‘one of the ablest, boldest, and most successful operators that ever lived.’ His obituary printed in the New York Herald stated that he ‘exhibited at best but the ingenious powers of a self-invented money-making machine.’

In his later years, Astor tried to pass himself off as a liberal humanitarian, but the pose was too unnatural, and it never became credible. To the end, money was his passion, and to make it his men evicted widows and debauched Indians. Though some writers, notably in the late nineteenth century, have regarded him as a great American hero, history has not accepted the verdict. Today, in a more complex era, Americans ask more of their heroes than the ability to make money.

This article was written by James L. Stokesbury and originally published in December 1997 issue of American History Magazine.

For more great articles, subscribe to American History magazine today!

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to

Tags: American History, Historical Figures

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.