William Backhouse Astor Jr. was an American businessman, racehorse breeder/owner, and yachtsman who was a prominent member of the Astor family. Astor's elder brother, financier and philanthropist John Jacob Astor III, became head of the English line of Astors, and William Jr. was head of the male American line of Astors with his wife, Caroline Schermerhorn Astor, serving as the head of New York society's "Four Hundred" during the Gilded Age.
He supported the abolition of slavery before the American Civil War, and during the war, he personally bore the cost to equip an entire Union Army regiment. Unlike his business oriented father, William Jr. did not aggressively pursue an expansion of his inherited fortune, preferring life aboard the Ambassadress, at the time the largest private yacht in the world, or horseback riding at Ferncliff, the large estate he had built on the Hudson River. Astor's horse "Vagrant" won the 1876 running of the Kentucky Derby.
Florida involvement
William Jr. often spent winters in Jacksonville, Florida, aboard his yacht and was responsible for the construction of a number of prominent buildings in the city. He and sixteen other businessmen founded the Florida Yacht Club in Jacksonville in 1877, though he was the only person in Florida to actually own a yacht. The club is now the oldest social club in Jacksonville and one of the oldest yacht clubs in the United States. Liking the area, in 1874, he purchased a land tract of around 80,000 acres along the St. Johns River north of Orlando, Florida, in an area now called Lake County, Florida. There he and two partners used 12,000 acres to build an entire town that he named Manhattan but was later changed to Astor in his honor. His project, which would come to include several hotels, began with the construction of wharves on the river to accommodate steamboats. These steamboats attracted a steamship agency that could bring in the necessary materials and supplies. Astor enjoyed his development and purchased a railroad that connected the town to the "Great Lakes Region" of Florida. He donated the town's first church and the land for the local non-denominational cemetery, and he also helped build a schoolhouse, both of which are still standing today. In 1875, one of the many nearby lakes was named Lake Schermerhorn after his wife, Lina Schermerhorn. The town of Manhattan, Florida boomed, and Astor, with an eye on the large New York market, expanded his interests to a grapefruit grove, a fruit that at the time was only available on a very limited basis in other parts of the United States. He did not live long enough to see the orchard grow to production. Following his death on April 25, 1892, the property fell to his son Jack. By then though, rapid changes were taking place throughout Florida. New railroads had been built in 1885 through the central and western part of the state, and in the late 1890s, Henry Flagler built a railroad line running down Florida's east coast from Daytona Beach. All this expansion left the town of Astor isolated and it was all but abandoned after train service to Astor was discontinued.
Personal life
On September 23, 1853, he married the socially ambitious Caroline Webster "Lina" Schermerhorn at Trinity Church in Manhattan. Her parents were Abraham Schermerhorn, a wealthy New York City merchant, and Helen Van Courtlandt Schermerhorn. Lina would go on to reign over New York and Newport society known simply as "the Mrs. Astor." William Jr. had little interest in society parties, and reportedly, Lina would try to keep him at his club late to prevent him coming home and sending the orchestra out and his children to bed. Together, William Jr. and Lina had five children:
Emily Astor, who married sportsman/politician James John Van Alen and had three children.
William Backhouse Astor Jr. died of an aneurysmat the Hotel Liverpool in Paris, France. Astor, an Episcopalian, was buried in Trinity Church Cemetery in New York City, New York. He is one of several responsible for opening up the tourist trade in Florida. His widow died years later in 1908.
