Having set up for himself, he worked with the quiet, indomitable ardor of a German who sees clearly his way open before him.  At first he did everything for himself.  He bought, cured, beat, packed, and sold his skins.  From dawn till dark, he assiduously labored.  At the proper seasons of the year, with his pack on his back, he made short excursions into the country, collecting skins from house to house, gradually extending the area of his travels, till he knew the State of New York as no man of his day knew it.  He used to boast, late in life, when the Erie Canal had called into being a line of thriving towns through the centre of the State, that he had himself, in his numberless tramps, designated the sites of those towns, and predicted that one day they would be the centres of business and population.  Particularly he noted the spots where Rochester and Buffalo now stand, one having a harbor on Lake Erie, the other upon Lake Ontario.  Those places, he predicted, would one day be large and prosperous cities, and that prediction he made when there was scarcely a settlement at Buffalo, and only wigwams on the site of Rochester.  At this time he had a partner who usually remained in the city, while the agile and enduring Astor traversed the wilderness.

It was his first voyage to London that established his business on a solid foundation.  As soon as he had accumulated a few bales of the skins suited to the European market, he took passage in the steerage of a ship and conveyed them to London.  He sold them to great advantage, and established connections with houses to which he could in future consign his furs, and from which he could procure the articles best adapted to the taste of Indians and hunters.  But his most important operation in London was to make an arrangement with the firm of Astor & Broadwood, by which he became the New York agent for the sale of their pianos, flutes, and violins.  He is believed to have been the first man in New York who kept constantly for sale a supply of musical merchandise, of which the annual sale in New York is now reckoned at five millions of dollars.  On his return to New York, he opened a little dingy store in Gold Street, between Fulton and Ann, and swung out a sign to the breeze bearing the words:—­FURS AND PIANOS.

There were until recently aged men among us who remembered seeing this sign over the store of Mr. Astor, and in some old houses are preserved ancient pianos, bearing the name of J.J.  Astor, as the seller thereof.  Violins and flutes, also, are occasionally met with that have his name upon them.  In 1790, seven years after his arrival in this city, he was of sufficient importance to appear in the Directory thus:—­ASTOR, J.J., Fur Trader, 40 Little Dock Street (now part of Water Street).