McCLURE'S MAGAZINE VOL. XXIV APRIL, 1905 No. 6 THE ASTOR FORTUNE BY BURTON J. HENDRICK ILLUSTRATED BY JULES GU^RIN AND WITH PORTRAITS AND PHOTOGRAPHS J E are accustomed to regard tition, the eastern half utilized by what the great American for­ may be called the Foreign, or English tunes as peculiarly the Department, the western by the American product of American gen­ branch. Day after day files in a procession in ius and enterprise. We every way typical of New York. At one time have an unbounded admi­ it is an unkempt Russian Jew from the East ration for the aggressive Side ; at another a paragon of fashion from leaders who have built our railroads, laid Fifth Avenue ; at another a dapper business our telegraph and cable lines, and organized man from downtown. They come to lease our manufacturing plants — an admiration fashionable residences or great business based largely on the conviction that, in piling buildings, in many cases to pay over the up riches for themselves, they unconsciously counter their monthly tribute. Every mor­ created the nation's wealth. Activity is so ning arrives a mass of mail, from which the much the national watchword that we can clerks collect a huge bulk of checks — the hardly conceive of a great fortune accumu­ rent money for the thousands of Astor lated by slow and easy stages, with no un­ tenements, residences, hotels, office build­ due display of energy by its possessors. One ings, docks, and leased lands. Periodi­ of the largest American estates, however, is cally a certain portion of this is sent not an over-night growth ; not the creation of up to Fifth Avenue and Sixty-sixth Street, dazzHng enterprise or the green baize of Wall where Mr. John Jacob Astor, fourth of Street. It is the result of a century's sav­ that name, fives in state. How much it ings, the product of the old-stocking school is few men except the recipient know, of finance. Its beneficiaries can lay claim to the Astors, above all, never talking of no great genius, except the genius, perhaps their wealth. According to the closest the rarest of all, of profiting by others' labor. observers, however, it cannot be less than They have contributed practically nothing to $3,000,000 a year. Twice, if not three times upbuilding the Republic, and yet few have that amount, is sent to Clieveden, Taplow, reaped so richly from its growth. Bucks, England, where lives the greatest ab­ The headquarters of the Astor estate is a sentee landlord in the world, the present head two-story red brick building on Twenty- of the Astor family. His one connecting sixth Street, just west of Broadway. Its link with his abjured country, and the one heavily barred windows are expressive of the touch of sentiment in the Astor office, is a policy of exclusiveness and silence which little back room, formerly the business head­ reign within. It is divided by a heavy par- quarters of William Waldorf's father, the Copyright, igo^, by The S. S. McClure Co. iAll rights reserved. PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 564 THE ASTOR FORTUNE third John Jacob. The desk is precisely as ficiently obvious fact to his own advantage ? he left it when he died in 1890, and every Astor looked north from the City Common — morning, by the orders of his now British now City Hall Park — and found his answer son, a cluster of fresh roses is placed upon it. in the sweeping fields and forests and swamps Most of the income obtained from their of the Knickerbocker yeomanry. Not many holdings, both John Jacob and William Wal­ years hence, he said, these neglected farms dorf reinvest in New York real estate. No will be occupied by the houses and business such nonsense as university endowments, buildings of a hard-working, rent-paying charity hospitals, people's institutes, or li­ people. At present their owners, year after brary chains for them. They have learned year, plant their corn and wheat and pota­ the lesson of the unearned increment too toes, altogether oblivious of the golden crop well. the future is to yield. Many of them are Here, then, in the most democratic city of pinched for money ; their great estates are democratic America, is a great family, estab­ heavily mortgaged ; anyone so foolish as to lished on purely aristocratic lines. It has buy would be a welcome deliverer. And after many branches — the Delanos, the Chanlers, I have purchased them, what then ? Simply the Careys, the Van Alens, the Wendels, and sit down and wait. No anxiety, no sleep­ the rest — whose collective fortune cannot be less nights, no work. Year after year the far from 1450,000,000. The story of how city will grow northward and gradually en­ this immense store was heaped up, and the velop these farms. It can make no progress forces contributing to it, should be one of the without first coming to terms with those who most suggestive chapters in American eco­ then own them. If I should be that happy nomic history. Ultimately it is based upon man, I would not even take the trouble to the foresight of one man — the first in a long make my own improvements or put up my line of American prophets who, unlike the own buildings. A sharp-witted man could seers of old, have translated their vision into so manage matters that, in most cases he substantial dollars and cents. This man, the could even escape taxation. In ten, twenty, ragged son of an idle German butcher, land­ and thirty years the people will need the land ed from the steerage at New York one hun­ badly enough to do these things themselves. dred and twenty years ago. According to Never was man given so splendid an oppor­ his great-grandson, William Waldorf, Johann tunity to reap where others have sown. Jakob Astor was descended from one Jean And thus began the extended land pur­ Jacques D'Astorga, a Spanish grandee of the chases which have continued uninterruptedly twelfth century. Soon after his arrival in to this day. New York, however, he was a delivery boy Perhaps Astor received his earliest hint for a German baker. "Yacob was nodding from his brother Henry, who antedated him but a little paker poy," once remarked his in this country several years. According to sister, a Mrs. Ehringer, "und soldt pread und tradition, Henry came over during the Rev­ cake." With the main facts of his life most olution as a sutler in the Hessian army. of us are familiar : how he made solitary Heinrich Astor was a rotund, rollicking trips through the unfrequented forests of butcher, whose keenness for money-getting New York State; how he bartered gold, was tempered by good-humor. Every day beads and firearms with the Indians for furs; he jovially pushed his merchandise in a how he sent these to China in his own ships, wheelbarrow from the Bull's Head market in bringing back cargoes of tea, for which the the Bowery to his stall in Hanover Square. Americans of those days had a famous appe^ To that daily exercise the great Astor tite. That he made a snug fortune" is evi­ fortune owes its beginning. Henry Astor dent from the fact that, by 1800, he was liv­ bought several acres on the Bowery, part ing on the Broadway block where the Astor of which he later sold to his brother Jacob. House now stands, with such neighbors as In the neighborhood of Hester Street, in a Rufus King, David Lydig, and John Ruth­ district now densely populated by ItaHans, erford ; but Astor's ambitions reached far "Jacob Astor, furr merchant," purchased beyond this. About this time he made the largely. The prices paid seem ludicrous to­ discovery which has proved so profitable — day. Thus the Bayards, whose hayricks that America was to be a great and populous stood on a great stretch of land now covered country, and that New York was to be its by the sky-scrapers of lower Broadway, glad­ capital. How best could he turn this suf­ ly sold dozens of lots at I200 and $300, which PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 1 1 t. 1 ^,„ .*»r .•_". -^ 1 iwf^ir*?'^-'-i ^ • ••:">.V4-V. •••= • .-- i..«5 ,- .-.. •"i"^ ••=<-»'•<« •;,••• . 4E[" -i- •,' Jj^U P • i H. V , . ,r - ^R: * IHB • ••••>• 7«S!'.;:i**';?".'r.'- • ., j^ff 1- • ».- Mil . A\ r" *i""!«J" • "; M•K ' "'"J-*' ''-' ^mm ••i#-i '•.'' 4i •gO?^: ^«^-.'^4l|'--«'i^ \:^**^ ' TB A. ^' 4 '••'•"^^^ THE NETHERLAND Copyright by Loeffler THE WALDORF-ASTORIA ^^ ^:*. *;SS'^ •y ^^^^^W. •f'S*; '^Sv •J * ttH*!^ r,.••,-'• I 's * • •*• • I ••'.' [..•••..•• • ' s«" •• . »,• : fc_ • * [.-•. •*••,, _> -T __'_ \*. .^L*y L-i^^. • HLIbatBiJB :/1? 1 . J^^^fSf^^ fr^T 1 r^«iai ^nrnm^:. I lii A'< 1 OK llorSI. HOTEL AST SIX or NEW YORK'S LARGEST HOTELS ERECTED AND OWNED BY THE ASTORS This group in­ cludes the AstoT House, the finest hotel of old New York, and the St. Regis, the finest of new New York. THE KNICKERBOCKER THE ST. REGIS PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED WILLIAM WALDORF ASTOR ' The richest absentee landlord in the world '' are now worth $300,000 and 1400,000. Thus chuckled over his bargain. "Mit dis eight one John Samler and his wife Catharine — tousand tollar," replied Astor, "I vill puy who signed the deed, with "her marli"— me eighty lots up der Broadway, near Canal parted with their East Side farm and rope- Street.