This absolutely amazing story is about Astor's attempt to do nothing less than establish a new colony, maybe even a country, on the west coast of the American wilderness. His goal was to build an emporium to trade furs across the Pacific to China. Astor was already wealthy and successful when he brought the idea to Jefferson, whose astonishing response was to offer his pledge of "every reasonable patronage and facility in the power of the Executive". Later Jefferson wrote, "I view your undertaking as the germ of a great, free and independent empire on that side of our continent and that liberty and self government spreading from that side as well as this side, will ensure their complete establishment over the whole" Astor's commercial ambitions were astounding and Jefferson was attempting to advance what took almost forty years of history to accomplish. All ventures, great/small, public/private, commercial/not-for-profit require capable managers and a certain amount of luck. Unfortunately for this great task, Astor had neither. His key personnel were French- Canadian and Scottish furriers and voyageurs and like all outdoors men of the era, they were free thinkers, men of spirit and independence. He chose a strict disciplinarian Navy officer, Jonathan Thorn, in 1810, to sail them from NYC to the mouth of the Columbia River. Thorn makes Bligh look enlightened. At one point, one of the Scots pulled two pistols and pointed them at Thorn, just to get him to return to the Falklands, where they had stopped for water, in order to avoid leaving half of the insubordinate furriers behind. Thorn lost eight men simply trying to find his way across the sandbar at the mouth of the Columbia. They landed and founded Astoria. For the Overland Party, Astor chose a young businessman, Wilson Hunt, to recruit and lead a team of experienced outdoors men to the Columbia. They left St. Louis in the summer of 1811 and headed up the Missouri on the trail of Lewis and Clarke. Their relatively slow pace left little room for safety in case matters did not go perfectly. One thousand seventy-five miles upriver, after innumerable tales of Blackfeet violence, the Overland Party left the Missouri and headed west on foot and horse. All in all, the decision appears to have been eminently reasonable. Hunt did a superb job and by October, the team was west of the Tetons and what is today Jackson Hole, WY. They assumed they were at the headwaters of the Columbia, but they were hundreds of miles further away from the Pacific than they believed. On Oct. 11, they dropped their canoes into the Snake River, which proved to be a challenge for even the experienced voyageurs. A canoe here and there were lost, and on the 10th day, they lost a cargo, all its contents and suffered the party's first casualty. A scouting party advanced and discovered the river was too steep to navigate safely. They had left their horses 300 miles upriver, had lost a significant amount of supplies, and had to proceed on foot with winter approaching. Hunt divided the fifty-man enterprise in to four teams, who all set off independently of each other. A month later, he found one of the teams starving and lost in what was (and is) the deepest canyon in North America. A Shoshone tribe helped them get through the winter. In the meantime, Thorn sailed north to initiate trading with Indians on today's Vancouver Island. He insulted them so badly that they took his ship and killed every man on board. In Feb. 1812, Hunt and the remains of the Overlanders made it to Astoria. Then a supply ship from NYC arrived and Astoria was back in business. Hunt re-organized the operation and soon there were eight different trading parties heading inland seeking furs. But, the War of 1812 led to a quick turn of events. Remember that almost all of the trading specialists were either Canadian or Scotch. Notice of the war arrived in the hands of men of the Northwest Company who demanded Astoria's furs at bargain prices, before the Royal Navy arrived. Hunt was away, discord prevailed, 200 days of rain per year was unravelling many, Astor's second relief ship foundered off Hawaii, and the men in the mountains were being killed by the Indians. In the end, the Americans gave up. The Royal Navy soon arrived and raised the Union Jack over Astoria. So ended this astonishing story. Some have surmised that if Astoria had fully succeeded, the British Canadians may never have had a claim to the lands bordering the Pacific. As it turns out, the Overland Party had discovered the Oregon trail, assuring the US a portion of the Pacific coastline.
This has been an enjoyable book and I thank Kathy Blair for the recommendation. Astor died the wealthiest man in America. Economists have calculated he was the 4th wealthiest in our history. An heir died on the Titanic and his last direct male heir died in 1959. At that point, the Vincent Astor Foundation was established and directed to give all of its money away in twenty-five years. I've never wondered why the famous hotel was called the Waldorf Astoria; John Jacob Astor was born in the German town of Waldorff.
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