The intelligence and alertness of the lad made him look like good timber for a minister.
He learned to read and was duly confirmed as a member of the church.
Under the kindly care of the village parson John Jacob grew in mind and body--his estate was to come later.When he was seventeen,his father came and made a formal demand for his services.The young man must take up his father's work of butchering.
That night John Jacob walked out of Waldorf by the wan light of the moon,headed for Antwerp.He carried a big red handkerchief in which his worldly goods were knotted,and in his heart he had the blessings of the Lutheran clergyman,who walked with him for half a mile,and said a prayer at parting.
To have youth,high hope,right intent,health and a big red handkerchief is to be greatly blessed.
John Jacob got a job next day as oarsman on a lumber raft.
He reached Antwerp in a week.There he got a job on the docks as a laborer.The next day he was promoted to checker-off.The captain of a ship asked him to go to London and figure up the manifests on the way.He went.
The captain of the ship recommended him to the company in London,and the boy was soon piling up wealth at the rate of a guinea a month.
In September,Seventeen Hundred and Eighty-three,came the news to London that George Washington had surrendered.In any event,peace had been declared--Cornwallis had forced the issue,so the Americans had stopped fighting.
A little later it was given out that England had given up her American Colonies,and they were free.
Intuitively John Jacob Astor felt that the ''New World''was the place for him.He bought passage on a sailing ship bound for Baltimore,at a cost of five pounds.He then fastened five pounds in a belt around his waist,and with the rest of his money--after sending two pounds home to his father,with a letter of love--bought a dozen German flutes.
He had learned to play on this instrument with proficiency,and in America he thought there would be an opening for musicians and musical instruments.
John Jacob was then nearly twenty years of age.
The ship sailed in November,but did not reach Baltimore until the middle of March,having to put back to sea on account of storms when within sight of the Chesapeake.Then a month was spent later hunting for the Chesapeake.There was plenty of time for flute-playing and making of plans.
On board ship he met a German,twenty years older than himself,who was a fur trader and had been home on a visit.
John Jacob played the flute and the German friend told stories of fur trading among the Indians.
Young Astor's curiosity was excited.The Waldorf-Astoria plan of flute-playing was forgotten.He fed on fur trading.
The habits of the animals,the value of their pelts,the curing of the furs,their final market,was all gone over again and again.The two extra months at sea gave him an insight into a great business and he had the time to fletcherize his ideas.He thought about it--wrote about it in his diary,for he was at the journal-age.Wolves,bears badgers,minks,and muskrats,filled his dreams.
Arriving in Baltimore he was disappointed to learn that there were no fur traders there.He started for New York.
Here he found work with a certain Robert Bowne,a Quaker,who bought and sold furs.
Young Astor set himself to learn the business--every part of it.He was always sitting on the curb at the door before the owner got around in the morning,carrying a big key to open the warehouse.He was the last to leave at night.He pounded furs with a stick,salted them,sorted them,took them to the tanners,brought them home.
He worked,and as he worked,learned.
To secure the absolute confidence of a man,obey him.Only thus do you get him to lay aside his weapons,be he friend or enemy.
Any dullard can be waited on and served,but to serve requires judgment,skill,tact,patience and industry.
The qualities that make a youth a good servant are the basic ones for mastership.Astor's alertness,willingness,loyalty,and ability to obey,delivered his employer over into his hands.
Robert Bowne,the good old Quaker,insisted that Jacob should call him Robert;and from boarding the young man with a near-by war widow who took cheap boarders,Bowne took young Astor to his own house,and raised his pay from two dollars a week to six.
Bowne had made an annual trip to Montreal for many years.
Montreal was the metropolis for furs.Bowne went to Montreal himself because he did not know of any one he could trust to carry the message to Garcia.Those who knew furs and had judgment were not honest,and those who were honest did not know furs.Honest fools are really no better than rogues,as far as practical purposes are concerned.
Bowne once found a man who was honest and also knew furs,but alas!he had a passion for drink,and no prophet could foretell his ''periodic,''until after it occurred.
Young Astor had been with Bowne only a year.He spoke imperfect English,but he did not drink nor gamble,and he knew furs and was honest.
Bowne started him off for Canada with a belt full of gold;his only weapon was a German flute that he carried in his hand.Bowne being a Quaker did not believe in guns.Flutes were a little out of his line,too,but he preferred them to flintlocks.
John Jacob Astor ascended the Hudson River to Albany,and then with pack on his back,struck north,alone,through the forest for Lake Champlain.As he approached an Indian settlement he played his flute.The aborigines showed no disposition to give him the hook.He hired Indians to paddle him up to the Canadian border.He reached Montreal.
The fur traders there knew Bowne as a very sharp buyer,and so had their quills out on his approach.But young Astor was seemingly indifferent.His manner was courteous and easy.
He got close to his man,and took his pick of the pelts at fair prices.He expended all of his money,and even bought on credit,for there are men who always have credit.
Young Astor found Indian nature to be simply human nature.
