Beginning the Fur Business

While he was in the employ of George Diederich, and delivering his cakes to the smaller shops in the city, young Astor was keeping his eyes and ears open for an opportunity to enter the fur business. This had become his chief ambition.

The way opened in a few weeks. Robert Bowne, an aged and benevolent Quaker, long established in the business of buying, curing and selling peltries, needed a clerk, and considered John Jacob Astor's application favorably. He was engaged at two dollars a week, and again found home and board in the family of his employer. The new clerk began work the next day, and discovered that his start in the fur business called for a generous amount of the elbow grease, of which his old teacher had recommended his pupil as possessed. He beat furs that day and many a day after, during the summer which followed, for an important part of the fur trade lay in preventing moths from destroying the soft hair on the skins.

John Jacob Astor set himself with all his heart to learning the business, on the principle that knowledge is power. He was moral, temperate and industrious, and to these foundation qualities, lie added incessant activity in acquiring a knowledge of furs, fur-bearing animals, fur-gathering Indians, fur-abounding sections, fur-dealers and fur-markets.

Often bear and beaver skins were brought directly to Bowne's store by hunters, trappers and Indians. Country boys who had trapped or shot some animal whose skin was of value, brought their prizes with them, or sent them by some larger collector of furs. Skins had an actual money value easy of access in those days, the time not being long past, when farms were bought and sold for a stated number of bear or beaver skins.

Young Astor questioned the traders, large and small, when he had a chance, losing no opportunity of procuring information. He made for himself a specialized course as a fur student, finding his teachers in everyone who came his way with a grain of knowledge to offer. With such faithfulness to business, the young man grew in the esteem of his employer. His salary was raised, and before long he was sent on short excursions into the surrounding country, for the purpose of gathering skins from the farmers and country stores. In time these trips were extended to Northern and Eastern New York.

In 1785 he made his first trip into the wilderness, as a purchaser of furs from the friendly part of the Six Nations. Once more he thrilled over a "venture" into the unknown. With a pack of German toys on his back, and clad for rough tramping, he started up country. He was strong, and capable of great endurance, and these trips tested his strength to the utmost.

Sometimes he tramped along newly-made roads, rough clods under his feet but a bright sun over his head, the signs of recent settling all about him. Farm-houses were usually far apart, and he often ate his dinner, which had been stored away in a corner of the pack on his back, under some tree of the forest, grown unhindered where it stood for centuries, till the white man's road had been laid past it.

From elevations he caught sight of chimneys in the distance, and turned into the woods, on a chance of procuring stored-up skins at the farm-houses hidden among the trees. Indian trails intersected each other on both sides of the Hudson. Beaten by the feet of red men for scores of years, they proved a better footing than newly-made roads.

Along these foot-paths he sometimes found small camps of Indians, and in the season they were almost sure to have skins in small quantities awaiting barter. Each day's tramp revealed facts regarding land and homesteads; settlers of many languages; haunts still held by the red men; the best places to secure peltries; and the most profitable opportunities to buy them.

Nothing escaped young Astor's eyes or ears. Though on his employer's business, he was also on a voyage of discovery, whose results would affect his future life.

The Indian was a great bargainer, and Astor needed to study his subject well to get the best in a change of commodities. He was familiar with the handicap of an unknown tongue in a strange land, and he set himself in his leisure hours, to studying the Indian language. Friendly Indians on his travels, or around a camp fire at night, showed solemn interest in these attempts of the young white brave to utter their gutturals, or learn their sign language.

Young Astor kept this up for six years, attaining greater proficiency each trip. "At the end of that time he could converse intelligently in the languages of the Mohawk, Seneca, and Oneida tribes. It is said he was the first fur dealer to win this advantage, and it gave him great prestige among the red men, and was of marked pecuniary value to him."

Besides acquiring the Indian signs and languages, the young trader developed rare ability in selecting goods which would tempt the savages, and induce them to part with their valuable peltries. He also exercised much patience and skill in conducting the tedious bargaining bouts, with which the Indians always preceded a sale.

The furs procured from the Six Nations, he employed Indians in carrying to the Hudson, where they were placed on one of the sloops which plied the waters of this beautiful river, and taken to the docks in New York. The sloop journeys down the Hudson were sometimes long, occupying from one to two weeks, according as the voyagers were favored by the elements; but young Astor cherished in his heart the joy of a full harvest, and could afford to sail at the beck of wind and tide. The sloops bound for the city often carried old salts, who were well acquainted with broader waters, and the long pleasant days and moonlight nights, or intermittent times of storm, found the young trader listening to many a sea yarn, and gathering by the way, valuable scraps of information to be put in use later on.

So successful was the young traveler on these journeys, that he was intrusted with the responsibility of the annual trip to Montreal, in the place of his employer. Montreal was the chief fur market of the country, and above Albany the path thither lay through the wilderness. With his accustomed pack on his back, John Jacob Astor walked from Albany to Lake George.

Here he hired a canoe, and paddled up the long, beautiful length of the lake. The scattered islands, the green-tinged waters, reflecting the mighty forests climbing its sides, the nights spent in the shelter of some friendly cove, formed an enjoyable part of the journey. Rolled in a blanket, lying in the bottom of his boat or on a mossy bank, the starry glory of the sky, the water dashing into white foam against some far rocks on the shore, lulled the youthful traveler to rest, his wearied body insuring him sound sleep.

Yet life was not all repose even in the silent night, for the sound of crackling bushes, or loose rolling stones, might mean a bear in the underbrush, a panther sliding between the forest growths, a deer stalking through the night, or the more welcome sounds made by smaller game. A clear, bright fire on the shore, kept animal life at bay, and though young Astor might find porcupine quills scattered about when morning came, he passed through his journey safely.

Doubtless he added salmon, trout, and pike to his meagre bill of fare when they could be caught, enjoying, with a young man's keen hunger, this appetizing fare from what is now Paradise Bay, or Sabbath Day Point. But for the most part the young fur-gatherer pushed on, intent on his business.

By canoe and portage he made his way along the little stream that connects Lake George with Lake Champlain, looking with curious eyes upon Fort Ticonderoga, whose surrender was demanded from the English Captain in charge, by Ethan Allen, "in the name of Almighty God and the" Continental Congress." Continuing the journey by canoe to the head of Lake Champlain, he ultimately reached Montreal. The furs secured here were shipped to England, since the law forbade the importation of furs from Canada to the United States.

During the year he was with Robert Bowne, young Astor began a little trading on his own account, for the most part buying skins from those who brought furs to market, by way of the sloops and other vessels lying in the harbor.

Meanwhile the Astor flutes did not sell very fast. There were two other dealers in New York who sold harpsichords, pianos, and barrel organs; and Dodd, of 66 Queen Street, made a specialty of other musical instruments. Without a place of business of his own, the young German finally left his flutes to be sold on commission at the printing office of Samuel Loudon, of the "New York Packet." This custom had been established with the dawn of the first newspapers in New York.

The advertisement: "German Flutes of a superior Quality to be sold at this Printing Office," appeared occasionally in the paper until March, 1785, when supposedly the flutes were disposed of, the money turned into skins which were sent to England, permanent arrangements being made for the shipping of furs, and a consignment of musical instruments from Astor and Broadwood brought to New York on the return trip.

Patience and perseverence seemed to be inexhaustible in the well from which John Jacob Astor drew, but long as was the well-sweep, it always brought up a bucket, full and running over.