He gained a fortune
by his business, which would have been thought immense, if the
colossal wealth of his brother had not reduced all other estates to
comparative insignificance. It was he who bought, for eight hundred
dollars, the acre of ground on part of which the old Bowery Theatre
now stands.
John Jacob Astor remained not long in the employment of Robert Bowne.
It was a peculiarity of the business of a furrier at that day, that,
while it admitted of unlimited extension, it could be begun on the
smallest scale, with a very insignificant capital. Every farmer's boy
in the vicinity of New York had occasionally a skin to sell, and bears
abounded in the Catskill Mountains. Indeed the time had not long gone
by when beaver skins formed part of the currency of the-city. All
Northern and Western New York was still a fur-yielding country. Even
Long Island furnished its quota. So that, while the fur business was
one that rewarded the enterprise of great and wealthy companies,
employing thousands of men and fleets of ships, it afforded an opening
to young Astor, who, with the assistance of his brother, could command
a capital of only a very few hundred dollars.
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