April 8th Autographs, Manuscripts, Books & Photography
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 4/8/2021
Uncut Sheet of 5 Mohawk and Hudson Railroad Company Stocks signed by Wm. B. Astor for his father...John Jacob Astor. Early! William Backhouse Astor, Sr. (1792-1875) William Backhouse Astor, Sr. was a businessman and member of the prominent Astor family. William Backhouse Astor, Sr. inherited the bulk of his father's estate and also that of his uncle Henry Astor who had died a wealthy man but without children. The combined inheritance made William Astor the richest man in the United States. He was the last member of the Astor family to enjoy this distinction. During the American Civil War he successfully brought a case against the income tax imposed by the United States government, which was ruled unconstitutional. His management of the family real estate holdings succeeded in multiplying their value, and he left an estate worth close to $50 million. It was at this time that the Astor fortune underwent its first major division, between William Backhouse Astor, Jr. (1830-1892) and John Jacob Astor III (1822-1890), whose son William Waldorf Astor relocated to Great Britain in 1893. His sons, whose side-by-side mansions were on the site later occupied by the first Waldorf=Astoria Hotel (a family property) and then the Empire State Building, inaugurated an era of both more flamboyant living and more generous philanthropy than their austere father and grandfather. John Jacob Astor (1763-1848) John Jacob (originally Johann Jakob) Astor made a fortune in fur trading and real estate. He is the founder of what became known as the Astor family. Born in Walldorf, Baden, Germany, Astor arrived in the United States in March 1784 just after the end of the Revolutionary War. He started a fur goods shop in New York City in the late 1780s. Astor took advantage of the Jay Treaty between Great Britain and the United States in 1794 which opened new markets in Canada and the Great Lakes region at the expense of the Canadians....
Major LYNDE CATLIN of Brooklyn, died on Tuesday, Oct. 8, at his summer home at Saranac Lake, aged 78 years. Major CATLIN served during the war of the rebellion, on the staffs of Gen. WOOD and Gen. GRANT, and after the war had a considerable experience in Indian fighting in the West. He was a direct descendant of Gov. PETER STUYVESANT.
Mohawk and Hudson Rail Road Company Stock signed by Wm. B. Astor for J.J. Astor
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