John Jacob Astor and the North Dakota Fur Trade

England's Hudson's Bay Company was chartered in 1670 and was the first established in North America.  About 1774 they moved inland to the North Red River area. 

Canada's North West Company was founded, in 1779.  Though their rivalry was fierce and bitter, by 1821 the two companies merged, retained the name Hudson's Bay, and is still in existence today.  Wow!  A company - an anything - in existence for 343 years!  You can even google it and find www.hbc.com (also known as The Bay).  You might even be buying from them and never knew that they were THE Hudson Bay Company!!

The only other long-term contender for the Red River fur trade was John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company.   (Not the best picture - but what do you expect for the 1700's?)

Library of Congress

Astor was born in Waldorf, German.  He heard about the fur business on board ship coming to America.  By opening new markets in Canada and the Great Lakes region his company became so successful that it was/is considered the first American business monopoly.  By 1800 he had a fortune of $250,000 - in the dollar of the day, not today's dollar!  In the next few years he had planned to flood Astoria (now in Oregon) with fur-trading posts, but the British captured them during the War of 1812.

Fur-trading pretty much came to a halt in the 1990's due to the efforts of wildlife conservationists.

Some reference material said Astor also made money in the opium trade - which is believable since China was one of his ports 'o call for the fur trade.

John Jacob Astor was also the founder of the rich and famous Astor family of New York.  One of his descendants died on the Titanic by allowing women and children to take his place on the rescue boats.