William Backhouse Astor, Sr.

William Backhouse Astor, Sr.
Born	September 19, 1792(1792-09-19) New York City
Died	November 24, 1875(1875-11-24) (aged 83)
Children	Emily Astor Ward John Jacob Astor III Laura Astor Delano Mary Astor Carey William Backhouse Astor, Jr. Henry Astor
Parents	John Jacob Astor and Sarah Todd
Relatives	Henry Astor, uncle William Waldorf Astor, grandson John Jacob Astor IV, grandson
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William Backhouse Astor, Sr. (September 19, 1792 – November 24, 1875) was an American businessman and member of the Astor family.

Biography

Origins and schooling

William Backhouse Astor was the second-oldest son of John Jacob Astor and Sarah Todd Astor, and the only one to continue the Astor bloodline. Born in New York City, where he attended public schools. His spare hours and vacations were employed in assisting his father in the store. When he was sixteen, he was sent to the University of Göttingen in Germany, where he joined the German Student Corps Curonia of the Baltic German students; later he moved to the University of Heidelberg. He chose as his tutor a student, afterward known as the Chevalier Bunsen, with whom he also travelled.

Partnership with father

In 1815, when he was twenty-three years old, he returned to the United States and entered partnership with his father, who changed the name of his firm to John Jacob Astor & Son and engaged in the China trade. (His brother, John Jacob Astor II, was, as one early-twentieth-century source put it, "feeble-minded," and incapable of working in the firm.) He worked there until his father's death. One source argued that his role in the company was never anything more than as "an industrious and faithful head clerk," despite his official title of head of the firm's chief subsidiary, the American Fur Company, in its last several years of its ownership by Astor & Son.

Although William Backhouse's fortunes grew with his father's company, he became a truly wealthy man when he inherited the estate, worth around $500,000, of his uncle, Henry Astor who died without children. When his father died in 1848, however, he became the richest man in America; he was the last member of the Astor family to enjoy this distinction.

Real Estate

Following the example of his father, he invested in real estate, principally situated below Central Park, between 4th and 7th Avenues, which rapidly increased in value. For about 13 years prior to 1873 he was largely engaged in building until much of his hitherto unoccupied land was covered by houses. He was said to own in 1867 as many as 720 houses, and he was also heavily interested in railroad, coal, and insurance companies. His management of the family real estate holdings succeeded in multiplying their value, and he left an estate worth close to $50 million. His house at Barrytown, New York, known as Rokeby, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.

During the American Civil War he successfully brought a case against the income tax imposed by the United States government, which was ruled unconstitutional.

Philanthropy

He added to the bequest of his father for the Astor Library the sum of $250,000, of which he paid during his lifetime $201,000 in land, books, and money. The edifice was completed under his directions in May, 1853. In 1855 he presented to the trustees the adjoining lot, and erected thereon a similar structure, which was completed in 1859. He next gave $50,000 for the purchase of books. He gave much patient attention for many years to the administration of the library.

He gave $50,000 to St. Luke's Hospital, and in his will he left $200,000 to the Astor Library, in addition to $49,000, the unexpended balance of his earlier donation. The gifts and bequests of William B. Astor to the Astor Library amounted altogether to about $550,000. In 1879 his eldest son, John Jacob Astor III, presented three lots adjoining the library building, and erected on them a third structure similar to the others, and added a story to the central building. His outlay, exclusive of land, was about $250,000, making the entire gift of the Astor family more than $1,000,000.

Family

His wife, Margaret Rebecca Armstrong was the daughter of John Armstrong, Jr., James Madison's second Secretary of War. William Backhouse's bequests resulted in the first major division of the Astor fortune between his two sons, William Backhouse Astor, Jr. and John Jacob Astor III. 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 descendants

In 1818 William Backhouse Astor married Margaret Rebecca Armstrong (1800–1872), the daughter of United States Secretary of War and Senator John Armstrong, Jr. They had 7 children:

1. Emily Astor (1819–1841), married Samuel Cutler Ward (1814–1884), financier, lobbyist, author. They had 2 daughters:
   1. Margaret Astor Ward (1838–1875), married 1856 John Winthrop Chanler (1826–1877) they had 10 children including:
      1. William Astor Chanler
      2. Lewis Stuyvesant Chanler
      3. Robert Winthrop Chanler
   2. Mary Astor Ward (1841-1841) (no issue)
2. John Jacob Astor III (1822–1890), married 1846 Charlotte Augusta Gibbs (1822–1887). They had 1 child:
   1. William Waldorf Astor, 1st Viscount Astor in 1917 (1848–1919), American ambassador in Italy 1882-1885, built the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in 1893, bought Cliveden-on-Thames from the Duke of Westminster, m. 1878 Mary Dahlgren Paul (1858–1894) (5 children)
3. Laura Eugenia Astor (1824–1902), married 1844, September 17 Franklin Hughes Delano (1813–1893). They had no issue.
4. Mary Alida Astor (1826–1881), married 1850 John Carey (1821–1881). They had 3 children:
   1. Margaret Laura Carey (1853–1911) (4 children from 1st, 1 son from 2nd marriage), married 1st 1875 (divorced) Alphonse Lambert Eugène, Ridder de Stuers (1841–1919), married 2nd 1880 Count William Eliot Morris Zborowski (1858–1903). Her first marriage made her Madame de Stuers until her divorce. Her second husband died in a racing car accident, as did their son, Count Louis Zborowski, who was killed at the Italian Grand Prix in 1924.
   2. Arthur Astor Carey (1857–1923), married Agnes Whiteside (4 children)
   3. Henry Reginald Astor Carey (1865–1893) (no issue)
5. William Backhouse Astor, Jr. (1830–1892), married Caroline Webster Schermerhorn (1830–1908). They had 5 children:
   1. Emily Astor (1854–1881), married 1876 James John Van Alen (1846–1923) (3 children)
   2. Helen Schermerhorn Astor (1855–1893), married 1878 James Roosevelt (1854–1927) (2 children)
   3. Charlotte Augusta Astor (1858–1920), married 1st 1879 (divorced 1896) James Coleman Drayton (1852-?), married 2nd 1896 George Ogilvy Haig (born circa 1859), the brother of the 1st Earl Haig (4 children)
   4. Caroline Schermerhorn Astor (1861–1948), married 1884 Marshall Orme Wilson (1861–1926) (2 sons)
   5. John Jacob Astor IV (1864–1912) died on-board the RMS Titanic (2 children from the 1st, 1 son from the 2nd marriage), married 1st 1891 (divorced 1910) Ava Lowle Willing (1868–1958), married 2nd 1911 Madeleine Talmadge Force (1893–1940)
6. Henry Astor (1830–1918), married 1871 Malvina Dinehart of Red Hook, New York (born 1845) They had no issue. The match with Ms. Dinehart, whose father is variously described as the head farmer or the gardner for the Astor family farm in Red Hook (which Henry managed), was considered socially unacceptable. Henry was estranged from his father, brothers and all but one of his sisters as a result. His reputed disinheritance for falling in love with a poor woman became a celebrated scandal in New York society. Henry withdrew from New York society to live the quiet life of a gentleman farmer with his new wife in a house he designed himself in West Copake, NY. (Sometimes referred to in his time as Astorville.) Shortly before his death it became public knowledge that, although substantially reduced from a full share, his inheritance still put him among the richest men in the United States. Henry and Malvina were childless and his fortune reverted to his siblings and their issue upon his death, although his wife was guaranteed the interest from one-third of the estate for the remainder of her life.
7. Sarah Astor (1832-1832), died in infancy

See also

• Frederick Clarke Withers

References

Further reading

•  Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Astor, John Jacob". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 
•  "Astor, William Backhouse". Collier's New Encyclopedia. 1921. 
• "Death of a noted citizen. Mr. William B. Astor. an illness of four days ends an honored and successful life the public events in Mr. Astor's career a ripe scholar and philanthropic man."The New York Times. November 25, 1875. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9A06E5DE143DE43BBC4D51DFB767838E669FDE. Retrieved 2008-08-09. "Mr. William B. Astor, after an illness of only a few days, died at his residence in this City yesterday at 9:30 A.M., aged eightytwo years. Mr. Astor was in his usual good health, except for a slight cold, until Saturday of last week. On that morning his cold began to trouble him and occasioned a severe cough."