Today is the 262nd birthday of John Jacob Astor, who was born on July 17, 1763, in Walldorf, Rhein-Neckar-Kreis, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. 

He came to New York in 1783 and worked in a butcher ship with his brother, Henry. It only took him a few years to start a fur-buying business and by 1795 he had trading outposts along the Missouri and Columbia rivers. 

He founded the American Fur Company in 1808, and had a lengthy correspondence with President Thomas Jefferson about the country’s western expansion, which he took full advantage of.

Astor and his wife, Sarah, had eight children and the major heir to his $20 million fortune (about $814 million now) was his son, William Backhouse Astor Sr., who carried on his father’s legacy of investing in New York real estate. 

John Jacob Astor died in 1848, at the rather extraordinary age (for then) of 84. Long after his death, The Daily Astorian of July 23, 1882, served up this pithy morsel summing up the life of the richest man in the country:

“Long biographies of Astor are published in Eastern papers. Boiled down, they condense thusly: John Jacob Astor came from Germany to New York with six flutes; sold them; invested in the furs; kept on. Sent some men to Oregon, invented Astoria, grew rich, died; exit Astor.”