14. Believed to have been the first multi-millionaire in the United States, John Jacob Astor saw the potential of New York City and bought up large tracts of land on Manhattan Island.
John Jacob Astor, born in 1763 as Johann Jakob Astor, was a German-American businessman and real estate mogul. Born near Heidelberg, Astor emigrated to London at the age of sixteen before departing England for New York City following the end of the American Revolution five years later. Intending to open a butcher’s shop, after encountering a fur trader whilst sailing to America Astor elected to change profession. Purchasing raw hides, Astor prepared and resold his goods for an enormous profit in London. Opening his own store by the late-1780s, Astor, taking advantage of the Jay Treaty which opened up the Great Lakes region, had earned a colossal quarter of a million dollars by the turn of the century.
Expanding his commodities, including entering the opium business, Astor was the chief beneficiary of the protectionist tariffs imposed in 1817 banning foreign fur traders. Ruthlessly establishing a quasi-monopoly, Astor increasingly reinvested his earnings into New York real estate. Starting in 1799, by the 1830s Astor, predicting the future of the city, owned significant portions of land in Manhattan. Leasing it to others, thus exposing himself to less risk, Astor died in 1848 as the wealthiest man in the United States. His estate at this time, estimated at twenty million dollars, would have been equivalent to $138 billion as of 2018.