Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson's Lost Pacific Empire: A Story of Wealth, Ambition, and Survival (35 page)

As the manuscript neared completion, it was read by several individuals who made valuable suggestions and offered insights. These were Mike Kadas, Noel Ragsdale, John Brown, and Jane Ragsdale, who also has contributed her enthusiasm and helped with research. Sally Thompson, archaeologist with a great deal of knowledge of the Lewis and Clark expedition and Native American history along its route, initially suggested to me that Sacagawea and Marie Dorion probably met along the Missouri River in 1811, and also provided insightful feedback on the manuscript itself. Jack Nisbet, writer of Northwest history, read the manuscript and gave helpful suggestions relating to the Northwest fur trade and geography. Jack’s book on David Thompson,
Sources of the River,
provided a key guide in helping me track that extraordinary explorer’s movements. Jim and Linda Hunt enthusiastically embraced the book and helped introduce it to other Northwest historians, while Ashby Kinch brought it to his group of readers. Nancy Cook and Tom Berninghausen provided helpful information on Washington Irving and other early American literature. Bailey Stark helped with additional research.

I feel fortunate beyond measure to work with the people at Ecco and HarperCollins who made this book possible, got behind it from the start, edited it so skillfully and intelligently, designed it so beautifully, and marketed and publicized it so enthusiastically. To Daniel Halpern, Martin Wilson, Suet Chong, Michael McKenzie, Doug Jones, Bob Alunni, Gabriel Barillas, Jim Hankey, and Emma Janaskie, you have my deep gratitude. To Ross Harris and Shana Cohen, many thanks. To Hilary Redmon, editor extraordinaire, and Stuart Krichevsky, agent extraordinaire, it’s been a pure pleasure to work together on this book. I’ve felt from the start it’s been a team effort and that it’s been a great team.

To research and write a book like this—or more generally to pursue a career as a freelance writer, and as a writer of adventure and exploration—demands a certain willingness to venture into unknown realms, sometimes geographically, but more often to stray into uncertain terrain psychologically and emotionally, not to mention financially and professionally. I would never be able to do this without the support and understanding and participation of my family—both my extended family and my immediate family. So to all of them, and especially to Amy, Molly, and Skyler, my deepest offering of love and gratitude.

NOTES

The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was created. To locate a specific entry, please use your e-book reader’s search tools.

PROLOGUE

1  
she swung sideways to the onrush of wind and water
: Washington Irving,
Astoria, or, Anecdotes of an Enterprise Beyond the Rocky Mountains,
author’s revised edition (New York, 1849), pp. 476–77.

“[W]e were in great Confusion and disorder”
: Samuel H. Northrop to John Jacob Astor, March 1814, in Kenneth Wiggins Porter,
John Jacob Astor, Business Man,
vol. 1 (1931; reprint, New York: Russel & Russel, 1966), pp. 552–54.

2  
Another wave hit
: Alexander Ross,
Adventures of the First Settlers on the Columbia River, Being a Narrative of the Expedition Fitted Out by John Jacob Astor
(London: Smith, Elder, 1849), pp. 261–62, and Irving,
Astoria
(1849), p. 477.

3  
contemplated adding a post down near San Francisco Bay
: A Russian fur post, eventually known as Fort Ross, on the Pacific Coast in today’s Sonoma County, was established in 1812, two years after Astor had launched his enterprise on the Columbia.

CHAPTER ONE

7  
“[Y]our name will be handed down with that of Columbus & Raleigh”
: Thomas Jefferson to John Jacob Astor, November 9, 1813, in
The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series,
vol. 6 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010), p. 603.

He smoked his pipe, sipped from a glass of beer
: James Parton,
Life of John Jacob Astor
(New York: American News Company, 1865), p. 50.

8  
Walldorf, one of seven “forest villages”
: Elizabeth L. Gebhard,
The Life and Adventures of the Original John Jacob Astor
(Hudson, NY: Bryan, 1915), p. 7. Gebhard, writing in 1915, corresponded with individuals in Walldorf familiar with the Astor family history in Germany and the early history of the town. She apparently was a descendant of John Gabriel Gebhard, who had also left Walldorf as a young man, when Astor was a boy of five, and who had known Astor when the two were in America. See Gebhard’s foreword for her many sources.

8  
The eldest Astor brother, George
: Parton,
Life of John Jacob Astor,
p. 18. Parton, writing in 1865, also cites a small biography about Astor, written by a Lutheran clergyman from Baden who interviewed living individuals in Walldorf who knew Astor as a youth. The pamphlet was published in Germany about ten years earlier (c. 1855) and served as the source for some of Parton’s material about Astor’s early life. Parton,
Life of John Jacob Astor,
p. 26.

His father was a Huguenot
: Gebhard,
The Life and Adventures of the Original John Jacob Astor,
p. 13, and John Upton Terrell,
Furs by Astor
(New York: William Morrow, 1963), pp. 23–25.

“loved not . . . John Jacob”
: Gebhard,
The Life and Adventures of the Original John Jacob Astor,
p. 20, and Parton,
Life of John Jacob Astor
, p. 19.

apprentice John Jacob to a clockmaker or master carpenter
: Gebhard,
The Life and Adventures of the Original John Jacob Astor,
p. 3.

youngest son
: Ibid.

“I’m not afraid of John Jacob; he’ll get through the world”
: Parton,
Life of John Jacob Astor,
p. 24.

“with a bundle over his shoulder”
: Porter,
John Jacob Astor, Business Man,
vol. 1, p. 7, citing Oertel.

9  
seven finely crafted flutes
: Ibid., vol. 1, p. 10; Parton,
Life of John Jacob Astor,
p. 29.

the New Land
: Gebhard,
The Life and Adventures of the Original John Jacob Astor,
pp. 23–24.

Making his way to New York City
: John Jacob Astor to Washington Irving, November 25, 1836, in Porter,
John Jacob Astor, Business Man,
vol. 1, p. 353. In this letter to Irving, Astor described his arrival in America and his first weeks there, receiving the hospitality of a Swiss man and wife living in Baltimore; the husband, Nicholas Tuschdy, had a shop where he let Astor display some of his musical instruments.

met aboard the ship a friendly fellow German
: Parton,
Life of John Jacob Astor,
pp. 31–32.

then with a population of twenty-three thousand
: Gebhard,
The Life and Adventures of the Original John Jacob Astor,
p. 68.

and reaching no farther north than Cortlandt Street
: Ibid., p. 60.

10 
“I’ll build . . . a grander house”
: Ibid., p. 73.

11 
voyage back to London
: Porter,
John Jacob Astor, Business Man,
vol. 1, p. 23.

“Jacob Astor [has] just imported
: Ibid., pp. 30–31.

“Jacob was nothing but a baker’s boy”
: Ibid., p. 20 [remark edited to remove “German” pronunciation].

controlled retail selling prices in the Manhattan meat stalls
: Parton,
Life of John Jacob Astor,
p. 37, and Gebhard,
The Life and Adventures of the Original John Jacob Astor,
p. 84.

12 
John Jacob married his landlady’s daughter, Sarah Todd
: Porter,
John Jacob Astor, Business Man,
vol. 1, p. 24.

81 Queen Street
: Gebhard,
The Life and Adventures of the Original John Jacob Astor,
p. 72. Queen Street is now Pearl Street.

best judge of furs
: Ibid., p. 80.

Greenwich Village, and another property called Eden Farm
: Porter,
John Jacob Astor, Business Man,
vol. 2, pp. 920–21.

13 
British merchants had organized the Hudson’s Bay Company
: Harold A. Innis,
The Fur Trade in Canada
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962), p. 119. The Hudson’s Bay Company was chartered May 2, 1670.

highly astute bargainers
: Gebhard,
The Life and Adventures of the Original John Jacob Astor,
p. 61.

Seneca, Mohawk, or Oneida
: Ibid.

“I have seen John Jacob Astor with his coat off”
: Porter,
John Jacob Astor, Business Man,
vol. 1, p. 38.

14  coureurs de bois
—the French-Canadian “runners of the forest”
: Innis,
The Fur Trade in Canada,
pp. 59–62.

15 
starting in 1788
: Robin Inglis,
Historical Dictionary of the Discovery and Exploration of the Northwest Coast of America
(Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2008), p. 141.

That nation, Mackenzie wrote
: Alexander Mackenzie,
Voyages from Montreal Through the Continent of North America to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans in 1789 and 1793,
vol. 2 (New York: Allerton, 1922), p. 358.

double row house at 223 Broadway
: Parton,
Life of John Jacob Astor,
pp. 49–50; Gebhard,
The Life and Adventures of the Original John Jacob Astor,
pp. 124, 143–44.

16 
“would not lose the sale of a bale of fur”
: Jefferson to Astor, November 9, 1813,
The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series,
vol. 6, p. 603.

to create a seaport on the Pacific Rim
: Stephen E. Ambrose,
Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West
(1996; reprint, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002).

17 
“It was my intention to have presented myself”
: Astor to Jefferson, February 27, 1808, Thomas Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress, American Memory Project.

“a man of large property”
: Porter,
John Jacob Astor, Business Man,
vol. 1, p. 167. Porter quotes a letter from to Jefferson from General Henry Dearborn, who apparently, at Jefferson’s request, had inquired about Astor’s reputation from New York City mayor DeWitt Clinton.

“The field is immense, & would occupy a vast amount of capital”
: Jefferson to Astor, April 13, 1808, Thomas Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress, American Memory Project.

on a warm summer Sunday in 1810
: Franchère,
Narrative,
p. 25.

18 
F
eathers and ribbons fixed to their hats
: Ibid., p. 25, and Irving,
Astoria,
p. 49.

“Dans mon chemin”
: Hiram Martin Chittenden,
The American Fur Trade of the Far West,
vol. 1 (New York: Rufus Rockwell Wilson, 1936), p. 64.

the lower Manhattan docks, now so packed with spectators
: Ross,
Adventures,
p. 11.

19 
“[D]elighted with the vivacity and dexterity of the two men”
: Ibid., p. 12.

20 
framed his global commercial vision
: Irving,
Astoria,
pp. 37–40.

22 
didn’t extend much farther west than the Ohio Valley
: For a population map of the United States in 1800, see http://etc.usf.edu/maps/pages/2300/2397/2397.htm, retrieved September 24, 2013.

23 
Though Hunt had no experience in the wilderness
: Irving,
Astoria,
p. 124.

24 
his new entity the Pacific Fur Company
: Ibid., p. 43, Porter,
John Jacob Astor, Business Man,
vol. 1, p. 182, and James P. Ronda,
Astoria & Empire
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990), p. 59.

“gunpowder fellow”
: Irving,
Astoria,
p. 54.

25 
“blow all out of the water”
: Ibid.

26  “
the germ of a great, free and independent empire”
: Jefferson to Astor, November 9, 1813,
The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series,
vol. 6, p. 603.

CHAPTER TWO

27 
How could Captain Thorn tell them
: Irving,
Astoria,
pp. 53–55.

blacksmith, carpenter, and cooper
: Franchère,
Narrative,
p. 30.

28 
Known for his expertise in scouting:
Ross describes him as whimsical and eccentric, p. 78. Franchère calls him “bold and enterprising,” p. 20.

“To prevent any misunderstandings”
: Irving,
Astoria,
pp 52.

29 
“We will defend ourselves”
: Ross,
Adventures,
pp. 14–15.

“to go to inhabit with strangers”
: Franchère,
Narrative,
p. 33.

30 
She carried ten guns
: Ibid., p. 38.

31 
with many of his passengers then hauled off to fight
: Ibid., pp. 35–36.

Captain Thorn grew fed up
: Irving,
Astoria,
p. 55.

34 
“The Order of the Good Times”:
Francis Parkman,
France and England in North America,
Volume 1, pp. 201–3. For the French in America generally, see also Marc Lescarbot,
The History of New France.

From then on, Scottish Highlanders, immigrating:
For the shifting power balance in the fur trade, see Harold A. Innis,
The Fur Trade in Canada,
chap. III, esp. pp. 166–88.

35 
On the night of November 11
: See Franchère,
Narrative,
p. 40, and Ross,
Adventures,
p. 19. Ross and Franchère disagree as to the date by one day, though it is certainly the same storm.

36 
“but the frail machine”
: Franchère,
Narrative,
p. 33.

“[The] terrible tempest”
: Ibid., p. 40.

37 
making a distance downwind
: See Ross,
Adventures,
p. 20. For further description gale forces, see Franchère,
Narrative,
pp. 40–41.

breaking two of his ribs
: Franchère,
Narrative,
pp. 40–41.

they were running dangerously low:
Ross,
Adventures of the First Settlers on the Columbia River,
p. 20.

38 
“This pious attention to two dead men”
: Ibid., pp. 46–47.

39 
“to our infinite surprise and dismay”
: Ross,
Adventures,
pp. 23–24.

CHAPTER THREE

41 
Astor’s “gilded prospectus”
: Ross,
Adventures,
p. 9.

42 
Mackenzie objected
: Ronda,
Astoria & Empire,
p. 89, and Ross,
Adventures,
pp. 10, 171.

hated to sit still
: Cecil W. Mackenzie,
Donald Mackenzie: “King of the Northwest”
(Los Angeles: Ivan Beach Jr., 1937), p. 26.

“To travel a day’s journey on snowshoes was his delight”
: Ibid., p. 26. Mackenzie the author was quoting Ross’s description from other writings of Ross.

43  canot du maître: Grace Lee Nute,
The Voyageur
(New York: D. Appleton, 1931), p. 24. See also Irving,
Astoria,
pp. 125–26, for canoe and paddler description.

forty to sixty strokes per minute
: Nute,
The Voyageur,
p. 27.

44  degradé: Ibid., p. 28.

“I can liken them to nothing but their own ponies”
: Ibid., p. 14, quoting Thomas L. McKenney.

“[T]hey haven’t lost an iota of French gaiety”
: Alexis de Tocqueville,
Letters from America,
ed. Frederick Brown (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), p. 154.