The agent took leave, and mentioned the anxiety of the old gentleman with regard to this unpaid rent to his son, who counted out the requisite sum, and told the agent to give it to the old man as if he had received it from the tenant.
"There!" exclaimed Mr. Astor when he received the money, "I told you she would pay it, if you went the right way to work with her."
Who would have twenty millions at such a price?
On the twenty-ninth of March, 1848, of old age merely, in the presence of his family and friends, without pain or disquiet, this remarkable man breathed his last. He was buried in a vault in the church of St. Thomas in Broadway. Though he expressly declared in his will that he was a member of the Reformed German Congregation, no clergyman of that church took part in the services of his funeral. The unusual number of six Episcopal Doctors of Divinity assisted at the ceremony. A bishop could have scarcely expected a more distinguished funeral homage. Such a thing it is in a commercial city to die worth twenty millions! The pall-bearers were Washington Irving, Philip Hone, Sylvanus Miller, James G. King, Isaac Bell, David B. Ogden, Thomas J. Oakley, Ramsey Crooks, and Jacob B. Taylor.
The public curiosity with regard to the will of the deceased millionaire was fully gratified by the enterprise of the Herald, which published it entire in five columns of its smallest type a day or two after the funeral. The ruling desires of Mr. Astor with regard to his property were evidently these two: 1. To provide amply and safely for his children, grandchildren, nephews, and nieces; 2. To keep his estate, as much as was consistent with his desire, in one mass in the hands of his eldest son. His brother Henry, the butcher, had died childless and rich, leaving his property to Mr. William B. Astor. To the descendants of the brother in Germany Mr. Astor left small but sufficient pensions.
To many of his surviving children and grandchildren in America he left life-interests and stocks, which seem designed to produce an average of about fifteen thousand dollars a year. Other grandsons were to have twenty-five thousand dollars on reaching the age of twenty-five, and the same sum when they were thirty. His favorite grandson, Charles Astor Bristed, since well known to the public as an author and poet, was left amply provided for. He directed his executors to "provide for my unfortunate son, John Jacob Astor, and to procure for him all the comforts which his condition does or may require." For this purpose ten thousand dollars a year was directed to be appropriated, and the house built for him in Fourteenth Street, near Ninth Avenue, was to be his for life. If he should be restored to the use of his faculties, he was to have an income of one hundred thousand dollars. The number of persons, all relatives or connections of the deceased, who were benefited by the will, was about twenty-five. To his old friend and manager, Fitz-Greene Halleck, he left the somewhat ridiculous annuity of two hundred dollars, which Mr. William B. Astor voluntarily increased to fifteen hundred. Nor was this the only instance in which the heir rectified the errors and supplied the omissions of the will. He had the justice, to send a considerable sum to the brave old captain who saved for Mr. Astor the large property in China imperilled by the sudden death of an agent. The minor bequests and legacies of Mr. Astor absorbed about two millions of his estate. The rest of his property fell to his eldest son, under whose careful management it is supposed to have increased to an amount not less than forty millions. This may, however, be an exaggeration. Mr. William B. Astor minds his own business, and does not impart to others the secrets of his rent-roll. The number of his houses in this city is said to be seven hundred and twenty.
The bequests of Mr. Astor for purposes of benevolence show good sense and good feeling. The Astor Library fund of four hundred thousand dollars was the largest item. Next in amount was fifty thousand dollars for the benefit of the poor of his native village in Germany. "To the German Society of New York," continued the will,
"I give thirty thousand dollars on condition of their investing it in bond and mortgage, and applying it for the purpose of keeping an office and giving advice and information without charge to all emigrants arriving here, and for the purpose of protecting them against imposition."
To the Home for Aged Ladies he gave thirty thousand dollars, and to the Blind Asylum and the Half-Orphan Asylum each five thousand dollars. To the German Reformed Congregation, "of which I am a member," he left the moderate sum of two thousand dollars. These objects were wisely chosen. The sums left for them, also, were in many-cases of the amount most likely to be well employed. Twenty-five thousand dollars he left to Columbia College, but unfortunately repented, and annulled the bequest in a codicil.
We need not enlarge on the success which has attended the bequest for the Astor Library,—a bequest to which Mr. William B. Astor has added, in land, books, and money, about two hundred thousand dollars. It is the ornament and boast of the city. Nothing is wanting to its complete utility but an extension of the time of its being accessible to the public. Such a library, in such a city as this, should be open at sunrise, and close at ten in the evening. If but one studious youth should desire to avail himself of the morning hours before going to his daily work, the interests of that one would justify the directors in opening the treasures of the library at the rising of the sun. In the evening, of course, the library would probably be attended by a greater number of readers than in all the hours of the day together.