rew older he entrusted to
Astor the task of making long and fatiguing journeys to the Indian
tribes in the Adirondacks and Canada and bargaining with them for furs.

ASTOR'S EARLY CAREER.

Astor got together enough money to start in the fur business for himself
in 1786 in a small store on Water street. It is not unreasonable to
suppose that at this time he, in common with all the fur dealers of the
time, participated in the current methods of defrauding the Indians. It
is certain that he contrived to get their most valuable furs for a jug
of rum or for a few toys or notions. Returning from these strokes of
trade, he would ship large quantities of the furs to London where they
were sold at great profit.

His marriage to Sarah Todd, a cousin of Henry Brevoort, brought him a
good wife, who had the shining quality of being economical, and an
accession of some means and considerable family connections. Remarkably
close-fisted, he weighed over every penny. As fast as his means
increased he used them in extending his business. By 1794 he was
somewhat of an expansive merchant. Scores of trappers and agents ravaged
the wilderness at his command. Periodically he shipped large quantities
of furs to Europe. His modest, even niggardly, ways of living in rooms
over his store were not calculated to create the impression that he was
a rich man. It was his invariable practice habitually to deceive others
as to his possessions and plans. But when, in 1800, he removed to No.
223 Broadway, at the corner of Vesey street, then a fashionable
neighborhood, he was rated, perforce, as a man of no inconsiderable
means. He was, in fact, as nearly as can be gathered, worth at this time
a quarter of a million dollars--a monumental fortune at a period when
a man who had $50,000 was thought rich; when a good house could be
rented for $350 a year and when $750 or $800 would fully defray the
annual expenses of the average well-living family.

[Illustration: JOHN JACOB ASTOR.
The Founder of the Colossal Astor Fortune.
(From an Engraving.)]

The great profits from the fur trade naturally led him into the business
of being his own shipowner and shipper, for he was a highly efficient
organizer and well understood the needlessness of middlemen. A beaver
skin bought for one dollar from the Indian or white trappers in Western
New York could be sold in London for six dollars and a quarter. On all
other furs there were the same large profits. But, in add