England and America

During the next four years, John Jacob Astor became what American boys to-day call a "digger." He was not afraid or ashamed of hard work of any kind, but gilded it always with dreams of success ahead. It was the means to a desired end, and nothing was too great a task if it helped him to move toward his ideal.

A Lutheran clergyman of Baden, writing of John Jacob Astor at this time, assures his readers that young Astor brought to London, "A pious, true and godly spirit, a clear understanding, a sound youthful elbow grease, and the wish to put it to good use."

The path to success is divided by mile-stones of possible attainment. During his life in London John Jacob Astor kept three aims before him, or rather four; to earn and save money, to learn the English language, and to obtain all the information he could about America. In entering upon this course of action, he found himself handicapped in having no trade, his wages in consequence being very small. Though he was at work at five in the morning, and labored with all his might through the day, saving every penny possible, it was nearly four years before he could think of crossing the ocean.

These were years, however, full of tangible benefits outside of earning money. The boy was gaining experience in many ways. Learning the English language was not as difficult as he had anticipated. Spending his days in a work-shop with English mechanics, and having few German friends, he was almost forced to the use of the new tongue. In six weeks he had progressed so far, that he could make himself understood along necessary lines of communication. Before he left London he could speak the English language easily, though keeping the German accent of the Fatherland.

Obtaining trustworthy information about America was more difficult. Maps, geographies and books of travel were scarce, and these few contained many erroneous statements. A home-keeping Englishman of that day, looked upon America as composed of a group of rebellious colonies, making a great ado over a paltry tax, and as markedly disloyal to the mother country. The persuasive eloquence and generous championing of America and her people by Fox and Pitt, Burke and Sheridan in the House of Commons, may have occasionally filtered in sparkling sentences through the work-shops of England, reaching the one in which John Jacob worked; but his main source of information lay in casual meetings with men who had crossed the Atlantic, or with those who re-told the stories of the voyagers. Naturally many of these tales were of a grotesque character, and unreliable to build upon for future action.

At rare intervals Henry Astor wrote from New York one of his infrequent letters. He was already established as a butcher in a small way, wheeling home his purchases of sheep and calves from the Bull's Head, in a wheel-barrow, and ready to laud America's possibilities to his younger brother.

By September, 1783, John Jacob Astor was possessed of a good suit of clothes cut in the English fashion, and about seventy-five dollars in money, the total result of four years' hard work, strenuous endeavor, and the closest economy.

It was during this month that news reached London, that Dr. Franklin and his associates, after two years of negotiations, had signed the treaty which settled the independence of the United States. Dr. Franklin was fond of predicting that when the independence of America became an accomplished fact, many young men of intelligence, fortune, and family, would seek the shores of the New World in search of the broad careers it would offer.

He did not suspect that a German youth, hardly more than a boy, was waiting the final move in the Treaty of Peace, in a London work-shop, resolved to grasp one of these careers, which the New World held out for those who knew how to take them.

By November, 1783, John Jacob Astor was ready to set sail for Baltimore. He was now twenty years old, and prepared to take the next step in his life plan. His capital for such a venture was small, but he expended it with a wise caution which suggested a clear business head.

A third of his savings he invested in seven flutes. Carrying these with him, he one day approached Captain John Whetten—who at the time was mate—aboard his ship, saying he wished to immigrate to America, and asking for a steerage passage. The mate was pleased with the young German's appearance, and after some little conversation, advised John Astor to sail on another vessel then in port, which would probably offer him a more comfortable berth.

Young Astor took Whetten's advise, and engaged passage in a ship commanded by Captain Jacob Stout, a most popular English Captain, who enjoyed telling in after years, that he first brought over John Jacob Astor to America. The young immigrant paid twenty-five dollars for his passage, preferring the sailor's fare of salt beef and biscuit to a larger outlay of money. The remainder of his capital, about twenty-five dollars, he carried with him in the form of money.

The joy that welled up in his heart as he felt the planks of the ship beneath his feet, which was to carry him to the land of his heart's desire, lifted him into a new world. The bustle all about him, the smell of tar and briny water, the orders of Captain and mate, the hustling of sailors, and expectant passengers, the creaking of the ship, all became a part of his thrills of joy in having really started his journey to America.

But his time of rejoicing soon passed into days and nights of anxiety. The voyage proved to be as long and tempestuous, as that of the three Johns from his own neighborhood years before. November gales and December storms tried the little craft to its limit, and gave John Astor many uncomfortable days and sleepless nights.

Still the days brought much of interest to the young voyager, besides their vicissitudes. Walking on the quarter deck, near the main hatch, he sometimes overheard the talk of officers of the Hudson's Bay Company, who were aboard. These scraps of conversation, seasoned with adventure, naturally whetted his appetite for more.

They reached Chesapeake Bay in January, 1784, but found it full of floating ice as far as eye could reach. The winter storms drove the ship crunching in between the ice cakes till it seemed as if she would be broken to pieces. On one occasion of great danger, young Astor appeared on deck dressed in his new English suit, answering the surprise of his fellow passengers with the remark, that if he escaped with his life he would save his best clothes, and if he lost his life, his clothes would be of no further use to him.

When they were within one day of port, the wind died down, the cold increased, and in the morning they found themselves hard-locked in a sea of ice. For two months they were ice-bound, and presumably young Astor exchanged his highly valued suit of clothes for one less prized.

Provisions gave out, and the passengers were only relieved when the ice extended to the shore, and became strong enough for safety in passing to other ships, and to the land. Many of the passengers were venturesome enough to start shoreward over the rough, uneven surface. Picking their way landward, in the face of the biting wind, sometimes with the sunshine on their backs, often with the fine ice crystals cutting their faces, they at length reached shore, and journeyed by land to their destinations.

This method of traveling was not within the means of young Astor, and lie was obliged to remain by the ship. Two months are a long time to wait, with good fortune possibly turning her favors in other directions, since the would-be venturer is not at hand. However, both ice-locked ships and frozen harbors sometimes hold fortune in their grasp, and John Jacob Aster's preparation for the new life was not hindered by these seeming obstacles.

Among the passengers in the same plight with himself, was a German with whom young Astor had made acquaintance during the voyage. Speaking the same tongue drew them together, and each confided to the other much of his past history, and future hopes. The stranger had also been an immigrant to America a few years before. He had bought furs from the Indians and boatmen coming to New York from the river villages. At length he had gathered together quite a little capital, all of which he invested in skins, and took them himself to England, where he sold them at a large profit. The proceeds he invested in toys and trinkets, with which to continue the trade on his return.

Day by day, as they waited for the ice to break up, the two young men discussed the fur trade, his fellow passenger, after strongly advising John Jacob Astor to take up the business, initiating him in many of its important points. He told him of the respective prices of skins in America and London; instructed him where to buy, how to preserve, pack, and transport the peltries. He gave him the names of special dealers in New York, Montreal and London, and told him the season of the year when furs were most abundant.

All this was most interesting to young Astor, but it seemed to him to call for a greater capital than he possessed. It was a surprise to him to learn that with a basket of toys, or even cakes, a man could buy valuable skins on the wharves, and in the country near the city, which could be sold with profit to New York furriers. But better than this, when it could be arranged, was a connection with a London house, where furs brought four or five times the amount of their cost in America.

For the first time in his life, John Jacob Astor had an opportunity to learn a trade without the stipulated premium he had always lacked. He was learning a business in the middle of an icy bay, with his workshop an ice-bound ship, and for a teacher a fellow-passenger with himself.

Young Astor determined to lose no time when the occasion offered, to enter this profitable business, and meanwhile laid away carefully the valuable information which had come to him so unexpectedly. The little memorandum book in which he jotted down the points given him by his fellow traveler, is said to be still in the possession of the Astor family.

The hardest, thickest ice will perforate in time, and waste away in the warmth of the bright sunshine of late winter and early spring. After two months the ice in the Chesapeake grew porous, and broke into broad fields and endless cakes, and then moved out into the ocean. The passengers watched the breaking up with mingled feelings of anxiety and pleasure; but as the water cleared, they hailed the breezes in their sails, and the motion beneath their feet, as release from captivity.

After landing in Baltimore the two friends traveled to New York. The waiting time on shipboard and the journey to the city, had almost exhausted John Jacob Astor's purse, but he still had his seven flutes. Once more in a brother's house, he received a warm welcome, as did also the kindly and generous companion of his voyage.