Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson's Lost Pacific Empire: A Story of Wealth, Ambition, and Survival (18 page)

Yet for all his strengths and failings, Hunt remained an astute reader of human character. Though he’d always been well mannered and unfailingly polite—“a gentleman of the mildest disposition” was how Bradbury, the botanist, had described him—Hunt now deliberately and forcefully changed his diplomatic tone. In order to hire a guide, rather than appealing to their desire for possessions, he played to their sense of pride.

“I ended by telling the Indians that they spoke with forked tongues, that they were lying to me. I accused them of being women; in short, I challenged them with whatever expressions would goad them most.”

And it worked.

“At last,” he wrote, “one of them found courage enough to volunteer to be our guide as far as the village of the Sciatogas.”

Photographic Insert

“Mrs. Astor (from a Miniature).” Sarah Todd Astor as a young woman, married to John Jacob in 1785 (
left); John Jacob Astor, after a Portrait by Gilbert Stuart.
John Jacob Astor in 1794 as an aspiring fur trader and New York businessman in his early thirties (
right).

Astor’s childhood home in the German town of Walldorf.

John Jacob Astor
by John Wesley Jarvis, ca. 1825. John Jacob Astor as a prosperous American businessman.

Lieutenant Jonathan Thorn (
left),
young naval hero who became captain of Astor’s ship the
Tonquin
, which carried the Seagoing Party to the Pacific Coast; Wilson Hunt Price (
right),
leader of Astor’s Overland Party to the Pacific Coast.

Tontine Coffee House, N.Y.C.
by Francis Guy, ca. 1797. Tontine Coffee House (
left)
and Merchant’s Coffee House (
center)
at the corner of Wall and Water Streets, New York City, where merchants such as Astor gathered to conduct business. Astor’s office and home were a few blocks away.

Portrait of Alexander Ross
(left);
portrait of Donald Mackenzie (
right).

Portrait of Ramsey Crooks
(left);
portrait of Robert Stuart (
right).

Portrait of Gabriel Franchère.

Portrait of a voyageur.

Canoes in a Fog, Lake Superior
by Frances Anne Hopkins, 1869. Voyageur canoes paddling the inland water route to the North American interior, as Hunt’s Overland Party did.

View from Floyd’s Grave, 1300 Miles Above St. Louis
by George Catlin, 1832. A Missouri River scene. The Overland Party worked its way in riverboats up this same stretch of river.

Stu-mick-o-súcks, Buffalo Bull’s Back Fat, Head Chief, Blood Tribe
by George Catlin, 1832. Portrait of a chief of the Blackfeet Confederacy, the Native Americans whom Hunt’s party feared and veered south to avoid.