The agent took leave, and mentioned the anxiety of the old gentleman with regard to this unpaid rent to his son, who counted out the requisite sum, and told the agent to give it to the old man as if he had received it from the tenant.

“There!” exclaimed Mr. Astor when he received the money, “I told you she would pay it, if you went the right way to work with her.”

Who would have twenty millions at such a price?

On the twenty-ninth of March, 1848, of old age merely, in the presence of his family and friends, without pain or disquiet, this remarkable man breathed his last.  He was buried in a vault in the church of St. Thomas in Broadway.  Though he expressly declared in his will that he was a member of the Reformed German Congregation, no clergyman of that church took part in the services of his funeral.  The unusual number of six Episcopal Doctors of Divinity assisted at the ceremony.  A bishop could have scarcely expected a more distinguished funeral homage.  Such a thing it is in a commercial city to die worth twenty millions!  The pall-bearers were Washington Irving, Philip Hone, Sylvanus Miller, James G. King, Isaac Bell, David B. Ogden, Thomas J. Oakley, Ramsey Crooks, and Jacob B. Taylor.

The public curiosity with regard to the will of the deceased millionaire was fully gratified by the enterprise of the Herald, which published it entire in five columns of its smallest type a day or two after the funeral.  The ruling desires of Mr. Astor with regard to his property were evidently these two:  1.  To provide amply and safely for his children, grandchildren, nephews, and nieces; 2.  To keep his estate, as much as was consistent with his desire, in one mass in the hands of his eldest son.  His brother Henry, the butcher, had died childless and rich, leaving his property to Mr. William B. Astor.  To the descendants of the brother in Germany Mr. Astor left small but sufficient pensions.

To many of his surviving children and grandchildren in America he left life-interests and stocks, which seem designed to produce an average of about fifteen thousand dollars a year.  Other grandsons were to have twenty-five thousand dollars on reaching the age of twenty-five, and the same sum when they were thirty.  His favorite grandson, Charles Astor Bristed, since well known to the public as an author and poet, was left amply provided for.  He directed his executors to “provide for my unfortunate son, John Jacob Astor, and to procure for him all the comforts which his condition does or may require.”  For this purpose ten thousand dollars a year was directed to be appropriated, and the house built for him in Fourteenth Street, near Ninth Avenue, was to be his for life.  If he should be restored to the use of his faculties, he was to have an income of one hundred thousand dollars.  The number of persons, all relatives or connections of the deceased, who were benefited by the will, was about twenty-five.