Background
William Backhouse Astor was born on September 19, 1792 in New York City, New York, United States, the son of John Jacob and Sarah (Todd) Astor.
William Backhouse Astor was born on September 19, 1792 in New York City, New York, United States, the son of John Jacob and Sarah (Todd) Astor.
He attended local public schools.
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 was then sent to Heidelberg, and after two years to Göttingen, where he chose as his tutor a fellow-student, von Bunsen, later known as "the Chevalier, " with whom for a time he traveled.
His part in the operations of the firm and of its chief subsidiary, the American Fur Company, though important, was always subordinate.
All the bold plans by which it was built up were originated by the father.
It is as his father's efficient coadjutor that the son is best known and after the father's death as the administrator and augmentor of the Astor millions.
On the death of his father in 1848 he succeeded to the rank of the richest man in the United States.
The father's policy of buying real estate in the section of New York City south of Fifty-ninth St. between Fourth and Seventh Aves.
He thus became commonly known as the "landlord of New York. "
The rapid growth of population in the metropolis greatly increased land values and brought to him a constantly augmenting rent-roll.
The pressure for living quarters soon converted many of the Astor buildings into crowded tenements, for which they were wholly unfitted.
During the next twelve years he demolished many of the old rookeries and erected in their place simple and substantial buildings appropriate to the various localities.
He was extremely methodical, and for many years made a practise of leaving his home exactly at nine and walking to his place of business.
Up to four days before his death he was at his desk daily, hard at work.
Others have portrayed him as a man of dignified culture, a student of books and affairs, and one who, though he made no new literary friends, retained as associates the scholars and penmen who had been the friends of his father.
Certain it is that he corrected at once some of the niggardly bequests of his father.
He raised, for instance, the annuity of Fitz-Greene Halleck from $200 to $1, 500.
Also, he gave $50, 000 to St. Luke's Hospital.
He made the Astor Library his particular care.
Under his direction the edifice was completed in May 1853.
Two years later he presented to the trustees an adjoining lot, and he erected thereon a similar structure, completed in 1859.
His fortune, estimated to have been from $45, 000, 000 to $50, 000, 000, he divided equally between his sons, John Jacob and William.
He was a tall, heavy built man, with a decided German look, a countenance blank, eyes small and contracted, a look sluggish and unimpassioned, unimpressible in his feelings, taciturn and unsocial.
There is word also of his many and generous benefactions, of his liberality to his tenants, and of his high sense of honor.
Astor was married to Margaret Armstrong, they had six children.
His name is unknown.
She died in infancy.
He died at the age of two.
