When the original store was abandoned for the Stewart "Palace" the old
apple woman with her box, basket and umbrella were tenderly taken
along, too.

John Jacob Astor had no such belief in luck omens, portents, or mascots
as had A. T. Stewart. With him success was a sequence--a result--it
was all cause and effect. A. T. Stewart did not trust entirely to
luck, for he too, carefully devised and planned. But the difference
between the Celtic and Teutonic mind is shown in that Stewart hoped to
succeed, while Astor knew that he would. One was a bit anxious; the
other exasperatingly placid.

Astor took a deep interest in the Lewis and Clark expedition.

He went to Washington to see Lewis, and questioned him at great length
about the Northwest. Legend says that he gave the hardy discoverer a
thousand dollars, which was a big amount for him to give away.

Once a committee called on him with a subscription list for some worthy
charity. Astor subscribed fifty dollars. One of the disappointed
committee remarked, "Oh, Mr. Astor, your son William gave us a hundred
dollars."

"Yes," said the old man, "But you must remember that William has a rich
father."

Washington Irving has told the story of Astoria at length. It was the
one financial plunge taken by John Jacob Astor.

And in spite of the fact that it failed, the whole affair does credit
to the prophetic brain of Astor.

"This country will see a chain of growing and prosperous cities
straight from New York to Astoria, Oregon," said this man in reply to a
doubting questioner.

He laid his plans before Congress, urging a line of army posts, forty
miles apart, from the western extremity of Lake Superior to the
Pacific. "These forts or army posts will evolve into cities," said
Astor, when he called on Thomas Jefferson, who was then President of
the United States. Jefferson was interested, but non-committal. Astor
exhibited maps of the Great Lakes, and the country beyond. He argued
with a prescience then not possessed by any living man that at the
western extremity of Lake Superior would grow up a great city. Yet in
Eighteen Hundred and Seventy-six, Duluth was ridiculed by the caustic
tongue of Proctor Knott, who asked, "What will become of Duluth when
the lumber crop is cut?" Astor proceeded to say that another great city
would grow up at the southern extremity of Lake Michigan. General
Dearborn. Secretary of War under Jefferson had just established Fort