When business legend John Jacob Astor died in 1848, he was hailed as a titan of trade and praised as a sharp salesman with a taste for philanthropy. “There are few men whose biography would prove more instructive or more acceptable for the present age than the life of John Jacob ...read more
Under the care of Robert Cushman, the first American furs to be exported from the continent leave for England aboard the Fortune. One month before, Cushman and the Fortune had arrived at Plymouth Colony in present-day Massachusetts with 35 settlers, the first new colonists since ...read more
Destined to make a fortune from the furs of the American West, John Jacob Astor is born in modest circumstances in the small German village of Waldorf. Although the number of foreign immigrants to the U.S. who succeeded in striking it rich is often exaggerated in the popular ...read more
Manuel Lisa, the first fur trader to develop the upper Missouri River territory explored by Lewis and Clark, dies in St. Louis. The son of either Cuban or Spanish parents, Lisa was born in New Orleans in 1772. By the time he was a young man he had developed extensive trading ...read more
Arikara Indians attack William Ashley and his band of fur traders, igniting the most important of the early 19th century battles between Indians and mountain men. Two years before, William Ashley and his partner Andrew Henry had started the business that would eventually become ...read more