America

Benjamin Franklin had been right in his prophecy concerning America. There was rejoicing among the liberal-minded in the old world over the signing of the Treaty of Peace, and younger Europe turned its eyes eagerly toward free America. The westward tide set in. Parton, writing of that period, says: "Men of family and fortune; widows seeking chances for their children; young adventurers with small 'ventures' of goods and capital; and hosts of poor men who sold their all, or mortgaged their labor to pay their passage, hastened to embark for the land of promise."

John Jacob Astor found teeming life on every side in New York. His own feet seemed winged as they trod on the soil of this free country, and the joy of himself as a part of the new world went to his head like wine.

His brother Henry lived over his shop, and in his house John Jacob Astor found not only a warm welcome, but experienced counsel. Henry Astor had advanced from the wheel-barrow stage in his business, and acquired a horse. He had prospered, while the old Tory families and a host of British officers required their tables supplied with fresh meat each day, but with the British evacuation of the town, and the return of the impoverished Whigs, his trade had declined. Nevertheless, he offered his younger brother a position as clerk in his business, but John Jacob, who had fled from the butcher's trade in Waldorf, was not in clined to resume it in this land of opportunity, so he declined the offer, and they considered other occupations.

George Diederich was a German baker, who had known young Astor in his own land. Finding him looking for employment, he engaged him to peddle cakes, cookies and doughnuts. The young man lived for some time in his employer's house in Queen St. (now Pearl). The Diederich house, which had been standing during the Revolutionary war, was a fine old mansion, rich in quaint wood carving, and one of the houses noted for its frequent entertainment of General Washington.

Peddling cookies and doughnuts was a respected occupation of the day. All the large bakers sent their apprentices out to offer for sale these luxuries of the oven. John Jacob had gained some experience in the culinary line at home, and so could help with the baking, as well as serve as a capable salesman. Tradition says that during his stay with Diederich the latter's business doubled.

The story is told that on one occasion in his later years of prosperity, John Jacob spoke slightingly of the distillery business, which occupation engaged the attention of his sister Catherine, and her husband. Catherine resented it with sisterly frankness, dropping easily into her native brogue. "Yacob vas noding once hisself," she exclaimed, indignantly, "put a paker boy, und solt preat und kak."

One did not hide an aspiration in his heart in America, for someone was continually rubbing one's elbow, who had the like. There was a fellow feeling for great expectations on every side, and John Jacob Astor often found a fellow sympathizer where he least expected it. Everyone had his adventurous story behind him, and his hopes ahead. One of these tales came to young Astor through a fair customer.

Abraham Bininger, whose parents were natives of Zurich, Switzerland, had set sail as a child with his father and mother, a generation before, for Savannah, Georgia. Two days before they landed, both his father and mother died. On the same vessel was the celebrated John Wesley, who saw that the boy was taken to the Whitefield Orphan Asylum, where he was kindly cared for during his childhood.

Later, a large number of Moravians, who immigrated to Philadelphia from the Southern city, carried young Bininger with them, and educated him in their faith. He became a missionary to St. Thomas, in the West Indies. Arriving at his destination, he was told that no one would be allowed to preach to the slaves, who was not a slave himself. Undaunted, he immediately sent a letter to the Governor of St. Thomas, offering to become a slave that he might carry the offer of salvation to the negro race.

His letter eventually reached the King of Denmark, who was so moved by its appeal, that he gave his permission for the young missionary to preach to any class in St. Thomas.

Of this stock came Abraham Bininger, the son of the missionary, who had been apprenticed to a tanner and leather-dresser in "the Swamp" in New York. He served his seven years, but did not like the business sufficiently to remain in it. At twenty-one, he decided he would rather earn his living as a day laborer, than continue his present occupation. About this time he married Kate Embury, a niece of the great Methodist preacher.

The young woman was beautiful and capable, with a good head for business. A laborer's wages were not ample, and the young wife proposed to assist her husband by setting up a business stand outside her door, upon which she could keep her eye as she went about her household duties. The scene of this new home and business venture combined, was in old Augustus Place, now City Hall Place.

At first the young matron only sold a few cakes, cookies, and candies, but business prospered, and she added cabbages, potatoes, fruits, tobacco and snuff. She felt an increasing pride, as she called upon her young husband to guess at nightfall what the profits had amounted to during the day. It had been a great day when they added groceries to their stock, and she asked Abraham to bring home seven pounds of sugar at night, to be retailed by the pennyworth on the morrow.

Katie Bininger's husband was not the only person who brought her provisions for sale. John Jacob Astor appeared each morning with fresh cookies, cakes and rusks in his basket. Similar ambitions moved the young German lad and the young bride. John Astor was not simply carrying a basket of rusks, in his own eyes. He was eagerly walking a path whose every step led to financial success. Katie Bininger was not keeping a two-penny grocery stand. She was beginning to build a fortune for her husband.

The tang of the early morning air coming in from the bay, the spirit of the times, and the hope in their hearts, were all fused together in the glances that shot from their eyes, as the cakes changed their places from John Jacob's basket to Katie's counter. The words they flung at each other, in the haste of the morning sales, also spoke of future expectations. Nothing was supposed to remain as it was with these young people. Every day was to show progression, and the great thing about these dreams was, that they came true.

Both of these youthful merchants had pluck, push and skill, and they never allowed any of them to grow rusty for lack of use. John Jacob might tell Katie of the wonderful swimming of Robert Goelet, the fat son of the iron monger, who could lie upon his back, with his hands under his head, and float upon the waters as securely as if on a feather bed; or Katie might tell John Jacob that she had heard his brother Harry's wife called "de pink of de Bowery," a compliment spicy with association with the clove pinks which abounded in all the Dutch gardens—but these were mere civilities. Their real object in life was getting on.

The streets themselves held a charm for the country-bred boy. There were venders of many strange commodities on the Bowery. Colored women, with flaming bandanna kerchiefs, tied in a peak on their heads West India fashion, and wearing clean white aprons, sat at the corners of the streets selling hot corn on the ear. On each side of them was a cup, one containing salt and the other butter. A more appetizing breakfast could scarcely be conceived than these ears of hot corn, eaten as one stood.

John Astor could hear the musical voices around a corner, or half way down a block, "Hot corn, hot corn! Here's your lily white corn," and they drew his willing feet nearer.

One old woman, on the corner of Hester and Bond Streets, sang her call in rhyme:

"Hot corn, hot corn! Some for a penny, and some for two cents. Corn costs money, and fire expense. Here's your lily-white corn."

Trays of baked pears swimming in molasses, held by the stem while eaten, were also a Dutch street dainty, whose succulent sweetness tempted the passer-by.

Nor was it food alone which was sold along the wayside. The genuine "sand man," familiar to all the childish world, sold Rockaway sand for sanding eating-house floors, and those of both kitchen and parlor in the Dutch vrouw's home. On the parlor floor the sand was worked with a broom into all sorts of fantastic shapes, and the door was shut upon this artistic glory until some state occasion. Negroes sold straw for filling beds; and peddlers pure spring water from Greenwich village, for two cents a pail.

It was like the street fairs at home when John Jacob Astor first began to tread New York thoroughfares; but before long the streets became familiar, and he wended his way amongst the unusual sights and sounds as if he belonged there, but always looking beyond them to his next step on the road to success.