The Biographical Dictionary of America/Astor, John Jacob (capitalist)

ASTOR, John Jacob, 4th, capitalist, was born in New York city, June 10, 1822, eldest son of William B. and Margaret Rebecca (Armstrong) Astor. and grandson of the first John Jacob Astor. He was graduated from Columbia college in 1839. He then studied at Göttingen, was afterwards graduated at Harvard law school, and practised his profession for a year. His occupation in life was mainly administering the interests of his share of the family estate. Like his father and grandfather, he was conservative in his methods, buying land where he saw good prospects of accretion in value and parting with it very slowly. In 1840 he married Charlotte Augusta Gibbs, of South Carolina, by whom he had one son, William Waldorf. From 1859 to 1869 he was a trustee of Columbia college. In 1801, on the outbreak of the civil war, Mr. Astor offered his services to his country, was commissioned colonel on the staff of General McClellan, and served as aide-de-camp with the army of the Potomac. He also aided, by generous donations of money, in fitting out the quota of New York troops called for in the proclamation of President Lincoln. In 1865 he was promoted brigadier-general by brevet for meritorious conduct during the Peninsular campaign. President Hayes offered him the position of U. S. minister to Great Britain, which he declined. He promoted with great liberality various beneficent interests with which the name of Astor had been associated, and his practical benefactions, mainly dispensed through the instrumentality of his wife, were multifarious. In 1879 he gave to the Astor library three lots of land on Lafayette place, upon which he afterward erected the North library building, the construction of which cost $250,000. To this latter he added a very valuable gift of rare manuscripts and books, and bequests of $400,000 for the purchase of books, and $50,000 as a trust fund for the payment of the trustees. In conjunction with his brother William, he presented the reredos and altar to Trinity church, New York, in memory of his father. The New York cancer hospital owes its existence to his liberality, and the woman's hospital and children's aid society were largely benefited. In 1887 after the death of his wife, he gave her magnificent collection of laces to the Metropolitan museum of art. He was so quiet and simple in his tastes and habits, so unostentatious, so correct and careful in his expenditures, as to win a name for eccentricity, while his unassuming charity was brightening hundreds of lives. He bequeathed $100,000 to the New York cancer hospital, $100,000 to St. Luke's hospital, and $50,000 to the Metropolitan museum of art. He died Feb. 22, 1890.