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.