William Backhouse Astor, Sr.

William Backhouse Astor, Sr. (September 19, 1792 – November 24, 1875) was a businessman and member of the prominent Astor family.

Biography

William Backhouse Astor was the second-oldest son of John Jacob Astor and Sarah Todd Astor. Born in New York City, where he attended 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. 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. (His brother, John Jacob Astor II, was, as one early-twentieth-century source put it, "feeble-minded," and incapable of working in the firm.) cite book |last= |first= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=Dictionary of American Biography |year=1928-1936 |publisher=American Council of Learned Societies |quote= | url= |isbn= ] He worked there until his father's death. One source argued that his role in the company was never anything more than as an "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.

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.

His daughter Mary Alida Astor (1826-1881), married John Carey (1821-1881). Their daughter Margaret Laura Astor Carey (1853–1911) became Baroness de Stuers before her divorce, then marriage in 1880 to Count William Eliot Morris Zborowski (1858–1903) who was later to die in a racing car accident, as was their son Count Louis Zborowski who was killed at the Italian Grand Prix in 1924.

Marriage

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 the following children:
* Emily Astor (1819-1841), married Samuel Ward, Jr. (1814-1884), financier, lobbyist, author
* John Jacob Astor III (1822-1890), married Charlotte Augusta Gibbs (1822 - 1887) in 1846
* Laura Eugenia Astor (1824-1902), married Franklin Hughes Delano (1813 - 1893) on September 17, 1844
* Mary Alida Astor (1826-1881), married John Carey (1821-1881)
* William Backhouse Astor, Jr. (1830-1892), married Caroline Webster Schermerhorn (1830 - 1908)
* Henry Astor (1830 - 1918), married Malvina Dinehart (born 1845) in 1871
* Sarah Astor (1832 - 1832), died in infancy

Death

He died on November 24, 1875. [cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=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. |url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9A06E5DE143DE43BBC4D51DFB767838E669FDE |quote=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. |work=New York Times |date= |accessdate=2008-08-09 ]

References

Further reading

*cite book
last = Anon.
chapter =William Backhouse Astor.
date = 1928-1936
title = Dictionary of American Biography Base Set
publisher = American Council of Learned Societies, Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2007.
location = New York