ng up their immense
accumulations.

FOOTNOTES:

[68] In 1847 and 1849 the Anti-Renters demonstrated a voting strength in
New York State of about 5,000. Livingston's title to his estate being
called into question, a suit was brought. The court decision favored
him. The Livingstons, it may be again remarked, were long powerful in
politics, and had had their members on the bench.--"Life of Silas
Wright," 179-226; "Last Leaves of American History":16-18, etc.

[69] The debates in this convention showed that the feudal conditions
described in this chapter prevailed down to 1846.--New York
Constitution; Debates in Convention, 1846; 1052-1056. This is an extract
from the official convention report: "Mr. Jordan [a delegate] said that
it was from such things that relief was asked: which although the moral
sense of the community will not admit to be enforced, are still actually
in existence."

[70] Of a total of $39,544,333,000, representing wealth in real estate
and improvements, the census of 1890 attributed $13,905,274,364 to the
North Atlantic Division and a trifle more than $15,000,000,000 to the
North Central Division.

[71] The Forum (Magazine), November, 1889.

CHAPTER II

THE INCEPTION OF THE ASTOR FORTUNE

The founder of the Astor fortune was John Jacob Astor, a butcher's son.
He was born in Waldorf, Germany, on July 17, 1763. At the age of
eighteen, according to traditional accounts, he went to London, where a
brother, George Peter, was in the business of selling musical
instruments. Two years later with "one good suit of Sunday clothes,
seven flutes and five pounds sterling of money"[72] he emigrated to
America. Landing at Baltimore he proceeded to New York City.

Here he became an apprentice to George Dieterich, a baker at No. 351
Pearl street, for whom he peddled cakes, as was the custom. Walter
Barrett insists that this was Astor's first occupation in New York.
Later, Astor went into business for himself. "For a long time," says
Barrett, "he peddled [fur] skins, and bought them where he could; and
bartered cheap jewelry, etc., from the pack he carried on his back."[73]
Another story is that he got a job beating furs for $2 a week and board
in the store of Robert Bowne, a New York merchant; that while in this
place he showed great zest in quizzing the trappers who came in to sell
furs, and that in this fashion he gained considerable knowledge of the
fur animals. The story proceeds that as Bowne g