Astor encouraged these expeditions, but at first invested no money in them, as he considered them "extra hazardous." He was not a speculator.
Until the year Eighteen Hundred, Astor lived over his store in Water Street, but he then moved to the plain and modest house at Two Hundred and Twenty-three Broadway, on the site of the old Astor House. Here he lived for twenty-five years.
The fur business was simple and very profitable. Astor now was confining himself mostly to beaver-skins. He fixed the price at one dollar, to be paid to the Indians or trappers. It cost fifty cents to prepare and transport the skin to London. There it was sold at from five to ten dollars. All of the money received for skins was then invested in English merchandise, which was sold in New York at a profit. In Eighteen Hundred, Astor owned three ships which he had bought so as to absolutely control his trade. Ascertaining that London dealers were reshipping furs to China, early in the century he dispatched one of his ships directly to the Orient, loaded with furs, with explicit written instructions to the captain as to what the cargo should be sold for. The money was to be invested in teas and silks.
The ship sailed away, and had been gone a year.
No tidings had come from her.
Suddenly a messenger came with news that the ship was in the bay. We can imagine the interest of Mr. and Mrs. Astor as they locked their store and ran to the Battery. Sure enough, it was their ship, riding gently on the tide, snug, strong and safe as when she had left.
The profit on this one voyage was seventy thousand dollars. By Eighteen Hundred and Ten, John Jacob Astor was worth two million dollars. He began to invest all his surplus money in New York real estate. He bought acreage property in the vicinity of Canal Street. Next he bought Richmond Hill, the estate of Aaron Burr. It consisted of one hundred and sixty acres just above Twenty-third Street. He paid for the land a thousand dollars an acre. People said Astor was crazy. In ten years he began to sell lots from the Richmond Hill property at the rate of five thousand dollars an acre. Fortunately for his estate he did not sell much of the land at this price, for it is this particular dirt that makes up that vast property known as "The Astor Estate."
During the Revolutionary War, Roger Morris, of Putnam County, New York, made the mistake of siding with the Tories.
A mob collected, and Morris and his family escaped, taking ship to
England.
Before leaving, Morris declared his intention of coming back as soon as "the insurrection was quelled."