"They cover the business of the Northern Department from 1817 to 1835, and consist of six folio volumes of about 1,000 pages each, in two stout traveling cases, fitted with compartments, lock and key. It is said that these books were missing for nearly seventy-five years, and recently escaped destruction by the merest accident. "The first entry is April 1, 1817. There are two columns, one for British and the other for American money. An entry, May 3, 1817, shows that Lewis Cass, then Governor of Michigan Territory and afterward Democratic candidate for the Presidency against Gen. Zachary Taylor, the successful Whig candidate, took about $35,000 of the Astor money from Montreal to Detroit, in consideration of something which is not set down." CHAPTER III THE GROWTH OF THE ASTOR FORTUNE While at the outposts, and in the depths, of the Western wilderness an armed host was working and cheating for Astor, and, in turn, being cheated by their employer; while, for Astor's gain, they were violating all laws, debauching, demoralizing and beggaring entire tribes of Indians, slaying and often being themselves slain in retaliation, what was the beneficiary of this orgy of crime and bloodshed doing in New York? For a long time he lived at No. 223 Broadway in a large double house, flanked by an imposing open piazza supported by pillars and arches. In this house he combined the style of the ascending capitalist with the fittings and trappings of the tradesman. It was at once residence, office and salesroom. On the ground floor was his store, loaded with furs; and here one of his sons and his chief heir, William B. could be seen, as a lad, assiduously beating the furs to keep out moths. Astor's disposition was phlegmatic and his habits were extremely simple and methodical. He had dinner regularly at three o'clock, after which he would limit himself to three games of checkers and a glass of beer. Most of his long day was taken up with close attention to his many business interests of which no detail escaped him. However execrated he might be in the Indian territories far in the West, he assumed, and somewhat succeeded in being credited with, the character of a patriotic, respectable and astute man of business in New York. ASTOR SUPERIOR TO LAW. During (taking a wide survey) the same series of years that he was directing gross violations of explicit laws in the fur-producing regions--laws upon the observance of which depended the very safety of the life of men, women and children, white and red, and which laws were vested with an importance corresponding with the baneful and bloody results of their infraction--Astor was turning other laws to his distinct advantage in the East. Pillaging in the West the rightful and legal domain, and the possessions, of a dozen Indian tribes, he, in the East, was causing public money to be turned over to his private treasury and using it as personal capital in his shipping enterprises.