nd wealthy companies,
employing thousands of men and fleets of ships, it afforded an opening
to young Astor, who, with the assistance of his brother, could command
a capital of only a very few hundred dollars. In a little shop in
Water Street, with a back-room, a yard, and a shed, the shop furnished
with only a few toys and trinkets, Astor began, business about the
year 1786. He had then, as always, the most unbounded confidence in
his own abilities. He used to relate that, at this time, a new row of
houses in Broadway was the talk of the city from their magnitude and
beauty. Passing them one day, he said to himself: "I'll build some
time or other a greater house than any of these, and in this very
street." He used also to say, in his old age: "The first hundred
thousand dollars--that was hard to get; but afterward it was easy to
make more."

Having set up for himself, he worked with the quiet, indomitable ardor
of a German who sees clearly his way open before him. At first he did
everything for himself. He bought, cured, beat, packed, and sold his
skins. From dawn till dark, he assiduously labored. At the proper
seasons of the year, with his pack on his back, he made short
excursions into the country, collecting skins from house to house,
gradually extending the area of his travels, till he knew the State of
New York as no man of his day knew it. He used to boast, late in life,
when the Erie Canal had called into being a line of thriving towns
through the centre of the State, that he had himself, in his
numberless tramps, designated the sites of those towns, and predicted
that one day they would be the centres of business and population.
Particularly he noted the spots where Rochester and Buffalo now stand,
one having a harbor on Lake Erie, the other upon Lake Ontario. Those
places, he predicted, would one day be large and prosperous cities,
and that prediction he made when there was scarcely a settlement at
Buffalo, and only wigwams on the site of Rochester. At this time he
had a partner who usually remained in the city, while the agile and
enduring Astor traversed the wilderness.

It was his first voyage to London that established his business on a
solid foundation. As soon as he had accumulated a few bales of the
skins suited to the European market, he took passage in the steerage
of a ship and conveyed them to London. He sold them to great
advantage, and established connections with houses to which he could
in f