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Astor family | |
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Current region | United States United Kingdom |
Place of origin | Walldorf, Electoral Palatinate Chiavenna, Duchy of Savoy |
Current head | William Astor, 4th Viscount Astor |
Titles | |
Heirlooms | Sancy diamond |
Estate(s) |
The Astor family achieved prominence in business, society, and politics in the United States and the United Kingdom during the 19th and 20th centuries. With German roots, some of their ancestry goes back to the Italian and Swiss Alps, [1] the Astors settled in Germany, first appearing in North America in the 18th century with John Jacob Astor, one of the wealthiest people in history. [2]
John Jacob Astor (born Johann Jakob Astor) was the youngest of four sons born to Johann Jacob Astor (1724–1816) and Maria Magdalena vom Berg (1730–1764).
The Astor family can trace their ancestry back to Giovan Asdour (1595–1668) and Gretta Ursula Asdour (1589–?). Giovan was born in Chiavenna, Italy, and died in Zürich, Switzerland. Their son, Hans Pieter Asdor, was born in Switzerland and died in Nußloch.
John Jacob and his brother George, born in Walldorf left Germany and moved to London in 1778. [3] There, they established a flute making company. [4] In 1783, John Jacob left for Baltimore, Maryland, leaving his brother in charge of the London business, and was active first as a dealer in woodwind instruments, then in New York as a merchant in opium, furs, pianos, and real estate. After moving to New York, John met and married Sarah Cox Todd (1762–1842). She worked alongside her husband as a consultant, and was accused of witchcraft after her success with the company in 1817. The accusations never led to legal action. They had eight children, including John Jacob Astor Jr. (1791–1869) and real estate businessman William Backhouse Astor Sr. (1792–1875). [5]
John Jacob's fur trading company established a Columbia River trading post at Fort Astoria in 1811, the first United States community on the Pacific coast. He financed the overland Astor Expedition in 1810–1812 to reach the outpost, which was in the then-disputed Oregon Country. Control of Fort Astoria played a key role in English and American territorial claims on the region.
John and George's brother Henry (born Heinrich) (1754–1833) also emigrated to America. Henry was a horse racing enthusiast, and purchased a thoroughbred named Messenger, who had been brought from England to America in 1788. The horse became the founding sire of all Standardbred horses in the United States today.[ citation needed ]
The third brother Melchior remained in Germany.
During the 19th century, the Astors became one of the wealthiest families in the United States. Toward the end of that century, some of the family moved from America to England and achieved high prominence there. During the 20th century, the number of American Astors began to decline, but their legacy lives on in their many public works including the New York Public Library. English descendants of the Astors hold two hereditary peerages: Viscount Astor and Baron Astor of Hever.
While many Astor family members joined the Episcopal Church, [6] [7] John Jacob Astor remained a member of a Reformed congregation to his death. [8] [9]
For many years, the members of the Astor family were known as "the landlords of New York". [10] Their New York City namesakes are the famous Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, [11] and Astor Row, Astor Court, Astor Place, and Astor Avenue in the Bronx, where the Astors stabled horses. The neighborhood of Astoria, Queens, was renamed to incite John Jacob Astor to invest there.
Beyond New York City, the Astor family name is imprinted in a great deal of United States history and geography. Astor Street, in Chicago's landmark Gold Coast district, is named after John Jacob Astor. There are towns of Astor in the states of Florida, Georgia, Iowa, and Kansas and there are Astorias in Illinois, Missouri, and Oregon. In Astoria, Oregon, the primary elementary school, a filming location for the 1990 film Kindergarten Cop, is called John Jacob Astor Elementary. The city is also home to the Astoria Column.
In Maidstone, Kent, United Kingdom, there was a secondary state school named Astor of Hever School. It was located within Oakwood Park, a former residence of the Astor family, which the family gifted to the Borough of Maidstone to be used for educational purposes. Whilst the Astor of Hever School changed its name in the early 2010s, it is still located on the Oakwood Park Estate, along with a Grammar School, a Catholic Secondary school and the Maidstone campus of Mid-Kent College. At one time the Oakwood Park Estate also contained an educational farm attached to the Astor of Hever School.
There is a neighborhood called Astor Park just south of downtown Green Bay, Wisconsin. [12] At the heart of this neighborhood is a park (also called "Astor Park"); the Astor family donated this land for the building of a trade school.
The Astors were also prominent on Mackinac Island, Michigan, and Newport, Rhode Island, with their summer house, Beechwood. [13] At Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, there are the Lord and Lady Astor Suites; the hotel salon is called Astor's. There is even a Hostel in York, England called The Astor. In addition, a dormitory at St. George's School in Newport, Rhode Island, bears Astor's name.
The Danubius Hotel Astoria in the center of Pest, Budapest, Hungary, opened in 1914, was given its name by the original hotel owners and Mihály Gellér, the first General Manager of the hotel, who formerly worked for the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York. [14] In Shanghai, China there is the Astor House Hotel in the Bund.
Mount Astor in Antarctica was named after Vincent Astor by the explorer Richard E. Byrd. [15]
Both in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, the titles Viscount Astor, of Hever Castle in the County of Kent (1917), with subsidiary title Baron Astor, of Hever Castle in the County of Kent (1916), and Baron Astor of Hever, of Hever Castle in the County of Kent (1956), were granted with the standard remainder to the legitimate male heirs of the bodies of the original grantees.
Both of the current titleholders continue to sit in the House of Lords following the expulsion of the majority of the hereditary peers by the House of Lords Act 1999.
The following is a list of figures closely aligned with or subordinate to the Astor family.
The following is a list of companies in which the Astor family have held a controlling or otherwise substantial interest.
John Jacob Astor IV was an American business magnate, real estate developer, investor, writer, lieutenant colonel in the Spanish–American War, and a prominent member of the Astor family. He was among the most prominent American passengers aboard RMS Titanic and perished along with 1,495 others when the ship sank on her maiden voyage. Astor was the richest passenger aboard the RMS Titanic and was thought to be among the richest people in the world at that time, with a net worth of roughly $87 million when he died.
William Backhouse Astor Sr. was an American business magnate who inherited most of his father John Jacob Astor's fortune. He worked as a partner in his father's successful export business. His massive investment in Manhattan real estate enabled major donations to the Astor Library in the East Village, which became the New York Public Library.
Caroline Webster "Lina" SchermerhornAstor was an American socialite who led the Four Hundred, high society of New York City in the Gilded Age. Referred to later in life as "the Mrs. Astor" or simply "Mrs. Astor", she was the wife of yachtsman William Backhouse Astor Jr. They had five children, including Colonel John Jacob Astor IV, who perished on the RMS Titanic. Through her marriage, she was a member of the Astor family and matriarch of the American Astors.
Viscount Astor, of Hever Castle in the County of Kent, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1917 for the financier and statesman William Waldorf Astor, 1st Baron Astor. He had already been created Baron Astor, of Hever Castle in the County of Kent, in 1916, also in the Peerage of the United Kingdom.
Baron Astor of Hever, of Hever Castle in the County of Kent, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1956 for John Jacob Astor, a prominent newspaper proprietor and Conservative politician. He was the fourth child of William Waldorf Astor, 1st Viscount Astor. Lord Astor of Hever was succeeded in 1971 by his eldest son, the second Baron, who served as Lord Lieutenant of Kent between 1972 and 1982.
William Waldorf Astor, 1st Viscount Astor was an American-English attorney, politician, hotelier, publisher and philanthropist. Astor was a scion of the very wealthy Astor family of New York City. He moved to England in 1891, became a British subject in 1899, and was made a peer as Baron Astor in 1916 and Viscount Astor in 1917 for his contributions to war charities. The census-designated place of Waldorf, Maryland is named after him.
Waldorf Astor, 2nd Viscount Astor, DL was an American-born English politician and newspaper proprietor. He was a member of the Astor family. He was active in minor political roles. He was devoted to charitable projects, and with his more famous wife Nancy became a prominent fixture in upper class English society.
Lewis Stuyvesant Chanler was an American lawyer and politician who served as the lieutenant governor of New York from 1907 to 1908.
John Winthrop Chanler was a New York lawyer and a U.S. Representative from New York. He was a member of the Dudley–Winthrop family and married Margaret Astor Ward, a member of the Astor family.
Barrytown is a hamlet within the town of Red Hook in Dutchess County, New York, United States. It is within the Hudson River Historic District, a National Historic Landmark, and contains four notable Hudson River Valley estates: Edgewater, Massena, Rokeby, and Sylvania.
William Backhouse Astor Jr. was an American businessman, racehorse owner/breeder, and yachtsman who was a member of the prominent Astor family. His wife, Caroline Schermerhorn Astor, served as the leader of New York society's "Four Hundred" during the Gilded Age.
Rokeby, also known as La Bergerie, is a historic estate and federally recognized historic district located at Barrytown in Dutchess County, New York, United States. It includes seven contributing buildings and one contributing structure.
Astor is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include:
The Waldorf-Astoria originated as two hotels, built side by side by feuding relatives, on Fifth Avenue in New York, New York, United States. Built in 1893 and expanded in 1897, the hotels were razed in 1929 to make way for construction of the Empire State Building. Their successor, the current Waldorf Astoria New York, was built on Park Avenue in 1931.
Elizabeth Astor Winthrop Chanler, Mrs. John Jay Chapman, was an American heiress and socialite during the Gilded Age.
Winthrop Astor Chanler was an American sportsman and soldier who fought in the Spanish–American War and World War I.
The Stuyvesant family is a family of American politicians and landowners in New York City. The family is of Dutch origin and is descended from Peter Stuyvesant (1610–1672), who was born in Peperga, Friesland, Netherlands and served as the last Dutch Director-General of New Netherland.
Franklin Hughes Delano was an American merchant, diplomat and society man.
Ferncliff Farm was an estate established in the mid 19th century by William Backhouse Astor Jr. (1829–1892) in Rhinebeck, New York. Not far from his mother's estate of Rokeby, where he had spent summers, Ferncliff was a working farm with dairy and poultry operations, as well as stables where he bred horses. In 1902, his son and heir John Jacob Astor IV commissioned Stanford White to design a large sports pavilion, which included one of the first indoor pools in the United States. The sports pavilion was later converted into a residence for his son, Vincent Astor.
Petrus "Peter" Stuyvesant was a New York landowner and merchant who was a great-grandson of his namesake, Peter Stuyvesant, the last Dutch Director-General of New Amsterdam.
The Astors [...] were Italian Protestants from the Alpine village of Chiavenna high above the northern end of Lake Como. [...] The first documented ancestor is Jean-Jacques d'Astorg. [...] He and his family are assumed to have been followers of the persecuted Waldensian Puritan faith [...]. Like most subjects of the duke of Savoy, d'Astorg spoke French and Italian, and answered both to Jean-Jacques and Giovan Petro Astore. [...] [I]n 1685 [...] the Sun King revoked the Edict of Nantes [...]. The massacre of Protestants in Valtellina high up in the Adda Valley sent d'Astorg-Astore, his wife, and their two children fleeing north across Switzerland to Heidelberg.
The names of fashionable families who were already Episcopalian, like the Morgans, or those, like the Fricks, who now became so, goes on interminably: Aldrich, Astor, Biddle, Booth, Brown, Du Pont, Firestone, Ford, Gardner, Mellon, Morgan, Procter, the Vanderbilt, Whitney. Episcopalians branches of the Baptist Rockefellers and Jewish Guggenheims even appeared on these family trees.
After losing a good deal of money with this early partisan of the New Deal, which subsequently reversed policy, Harriman and Astor bought a large interest early in 1937 in "News-Week". There they joined a group of other important stockholders, which included Ward Cheney, of the Cheney silk family, John Hay Whitney, and Paul Mellon, son of Andrew W. Mellon.