The two friends traveled together from Baltimore to New York, where they were warmly received by Aster’s brother, Henry, who had succeeded in laying the foundation of a prosperous business as a butcher, in which he afterward made a large fortune.  Both brothers were men of business habits, and on the very first evening after the arrival of the new-comer they began to discuss plans for his future.  Astor’s friend stated all the advantages of the fur trade, and convinced Henry Astor that it was a fine field for the energies of his brother; and it was agreed that it would be best for the young man to seek employment in the service of some furrier in the city, in order that he might thoroughly learn the business, and familiarize himself with the country and its customs.  To his great delight, young Astor learned that, so far from being compelled to pay his employer for learning him the business, as in Europe, he would be certain here to receive his board and nominal wages from the first.  The next day the three started out, and succeeded in obtaining a situation for the young man in the store of Mr. Robert Bowne, a Quaker, and a merchant of long experience in the business, as well as a most estimable man.  He is said to have engaged Astor at two dollars per week and his board.

Astor was at once set to work by his employer to beat furs, this method of treating them being required to prevent the moths from lodging in and destroying them.  From the first he applied himself to the task of learning the business.  He bent all the powers of his remarkable mind to acquiring an intimate knowledge of furs, and of fur-bearing animals, and their haunts and habits.  His opportunities for doing so were very good, as many of the skins were sold over Bowne’s counters by the hunters who had taken them.  These men he questioned with a minuteness that astonished them, and the result was that in a few years he was as thoroughly familiar with the animals, their habits, their country, and the mode of taking them, as many of the trappers themselves.  He is said to have been in his prime the best judge of furs in America.  He appreciated the fact that no man can succeed in any business or profession without fully understanding it, and he was too much determined upon success to be satisfied with a superficial knowledge.  He was resolved that there should be no detail in the business, however minute, with which he was unfamiliar, and he toiled patiently to acquire information which most salesmen in his place would have esteemed trivial.  Nothing was trivial with him, however, and it is remarkable that he never embarked in any scheme until he had mastered its most trifling details.  Few men have ever shown a deeper and more far-reaching knowledge of their profession and the issues involved in it than he.  He fully understood that his knowledge would give him a power which a man of less information could not obtain, and he never failed to use that knowledge as a power.  His instructions to his subordinates