Ear: Ashdoor

While researching a shipwreck, the following popped up in a September 1883 edition of The Daily Astorian: “Gossip About the Astor Family Name.”

• The New York correspondent of The Philadelphia Record says the Astors do not appear to have kept a very correct list of births, marriages and deaths during the first half century of their stay in this country …

… Mr. John Jacob Astor (pictured) seems to be unaware that the family name was originally “Ashdoor.” An advertisement in the New York Gazette of April 11, 1783, mentions a “dark brown horse, about 15 hands high,” as stolen from the first immigrant of that name.

“Three guineas reward for the horse, saddle and bridle. For the thief, horse, saddle and bridle, 10 guineas will be paid by Henry Ashdoor.”

Henry died childless and left half a million dollars ($13.6 million now) acquired by the art and mystery of butchering to his nephew, William B. Astor (1792–1875, John Jacob Astor’s son and heir).

The change of name appears to have been made prior to 1790, for in May of that year the inhabitants in the neighborhood of the Fly Market petitioned that the stall of Henry Astor, butcher, be removed to the lower market …

Note: Henry Astor (1754–1833) was John Jacob’s older brother, and came to New York with one of the Hessian regiments hired by the British to fight in the Revolutionary War.

The brothers were born in Germany, and their father, Johann, was also a butcher. John Jacob joined Henry in New York in 1783.

What about the name Ashdoor? Well, apparently it wasn’t gossip at all. According to a 1913 issue of Americana magazine:

On Sept. 1, 1784, land records show “Henry Ashdoor bought three lots … for £360. He signed his name Ashdoor to an advertisement of a reward for a stolen horse in April 1783.

“He … was the first of this German name in New York, now so well known under its Anglicized form of Astor.”  (bit.ly/JJAfam)