2 volumes 114; 100 pp. In original wrappers.
The lot also includes:
-
Thos. M. Beare, Agent for Wm. B. Astor. Civil War era printed and handwritten receipt for rent of house at 58 West 17th St., New York, March 15, 1862. 1 pg. Signed by Beard for Astor.
The first American multi-millionaire, fur trader John Jacob Astor, left most of his money to his son William, who owned over 700 houses in New York City and was the richest man in America, worth more than $50 million. Of William’s three sons, one was a yachtsman, race horse breeder and Florida developer; another was a financier, philanthropist, and later British expatriate. The third, Henry, was the black sheep, who, in 1871, married the daughter of his father’s gardener, a scandalous liaison which estranged him from his brothers and drove him “to live the quiet life of a gentleman farmer” on a 200 acre estate in upstate New York. Henry made headlines only once, in 1876, in the legal proceedings detailed in these rare imprints, when he was sued for $20,000 by John Ash, a former employee and in-law, married to Astor’s wife’s sister. Ash charged Astor, who had no children, with “unparalleled cruelty” to his daughter, Josephine, when she was 5 years old, striking her a blow while in a drunken rage which left her paralyzed in a wheel chair. Astor denied the charge, which his lawyer dismissed as an extortion plot. The jury thought otherwise, and awarded damages to Ash. Henry Astor never again came into the public eye before his death in 1917, when it was found that, far from being a disinherited “pauper”, he too was worth millions, collecting rents from houses he owned all over New York City.