Like most of our great mechanicians, he sprang from the ranks. He was born in Preston in 1732. His parents were very poor, and he was the youngest of thirteen children. He was never at school; the only education he received he gave to himself; and to the last he was only able to write with difficulty. When a boy, he was apprenticed to a barber, and after learning the business, he set up for himself in Bolton, where he occupied an underground cellar, over which he put up the sign, "come to the subterraneous barber—he shaves for a penny." The other barbers found their customers leaving them, and reduced their prices to his standard, when Arkwright, determined to push his trade, announced his determination to give "A clean shave for a half- penny."
At the close of his life, John Jacob Astor was the wealthiest man in the United States, and the immense fortune he left has been largely increased through his wise investments and the habits of business which he seems to have transmitted with his fortune to his descendants.
His life is a most interesting one, particularly to the young man who stands facing the world without friends or fortune to aid him. But young Astor had one quality to start with, a quality which success never lessened, and that was the capacity for unceasing industry.
He was born of peasant parents in the village of Waldorf, near the great university town of Heidelberg in Germany. When sixteen years of age he was crowded out of the hive by increasing brothers and sisters, and without education or experience, he started out to make his way in the world.
In the days of his great prosperity, he used to tell, with delight mingled with sadness, of the day when he left father, and mother, and home, which he was never to see together again. He used to say: "I had only two dollars in my pocket, and all my clothes were tied up in a handkerchief fastened at the end of a stick. When I had climbed the high hill above the village, I sat down to rest my heart rather than my feet, and to look back at the loved scenes of my childhood. Before leaving home it was decided that I should make my way to London—then the city of promise to many young Germans. While I sat there, I made three resolutions, which during my life I have never broken. I had never gambled, but I had known others to do so, and my first resolve was not to follow their example. The second resolution was to be strictly honest in all my dealings, and this I have tried to adhere to. The third resolution was quite as important as the other two together; it was that so long as God gave me health and strength I should be unceasingly industrious."
John Jacob Astor, as a man, faithfully carried out the resolutions he made as a boy, and the world knows the consequences.
When the impartial historian comes to write the life of Horace Greeley, no matter how much he may object to his policies and politics, he will give him credit for honesty, courage, perseverance, and an industry that knew no fatigue.
While barely in his teens, young Greeley, whose father was making a desperate effort to support a large family on a poor farm in New Hampshire, started in to work for himself. His early education consisted of a few winter terms in a common school. Before he was seventeen he had learned the printer's trade, and then resolved not only to support himself, but to help his parents. Realizing his want of education, he devoted every minute he could spare from work or sleep to study.
Speaking of these early days, Mr. Greeley said:
"There was many a heavy load placed on my shoulders, but I staggered on and bore it as best I could. Many an uncongenial task was forced upon me, but I can honestly say I never shirked it. If I have succeeded in my chosen profession, it has not been due to my early advantages, for I had none, but to my strong belief that patient industry would triumph in the end."