Word: astors
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...country and an intimate of statesmen, he ate ice cream and peas with his knife and wiped his fingers on his neighbors' clothing. But the territory he controlled was larger than Western Europe, its security was protected by strings of private forts erected and maintained by Astor, its commerce was served by a vast private fleet that carried countless thousands of furs to Europe, China, India and South America. In matters of border disputes over the fur trade, the government of Great Britain preferred to deal with Astor rather than with the Government in Washington...
Butcher's Son. Author Terrell tells the story of America's first tycoon in breathless prose that only hints at the character of the man but that traces his serpentine financial dealings in encyclopedic detail. Born the son of a butcher in the German village of Walldorf,* Astor took passage for America in 1783, when he was barely 19. Less than six months later, while he was serving as a baker's delivery boy, he bought his first fur pelt on the New York waterfront in exchange for some sugar buns. Aided by a loan from...
...Astor was not a particularly original thinker, Author Terrell believes, but he thoroughly understood something his competitors did not-the value of political influence. In 1808 he appealed to the patriotism of Governor DeWitt Clinton of New York, pointing out to him that three-quarters of the furs purchased in the U.S. were supplied by Canadian companies. A company establishing its headquarters in New York and extending its operations to the Pacific, Astor pointed out, would have the advantage over the Canadians of shorter lines of communication, enabling it to secure the trade for the U.S. and to stabilize...
...Astor wanted a Government-sanctioned monopoly, but he was shrewd enough to know he would never get it from President Jefferson. But with the added respectability of the New York State charter granted him by Clinton, he requested Jefferson's approval of the American Fur Co., and got it in a warm letter praising the patriotic motives of the company...
Scant Records. With that kind of start, Astor never was headed. He poured liquor into the frontier areas on the theory that the trader with the whisky was certain of cornering the market. One by one, the independent dealers went out of business or merged with the American Fur Co. Astor's greed was enormous. If company furs were exported in his own ships, he charged the company for the freight. The trappers who supplied him had to buy their clothes and equipment at American Fur Co. posts at a 300%-to-400% markup. But Astor's personal...