Note 89 — Chapter II
Reading edition
Some of the original ledgers of the American Fur Company were put on exhibition at Anderson's auction rooms in New York city in March, 1909. One entry showed that $35,000 had been paid to Lewis Cass for services not stated. Doubtless, Astor had the best of reasons for not explaining that payment; Cass was, or had been, the Governor of Michigan Territory, and he became the identical Secretary of War to whom so many complaints of the crimes of Astor's American Fur Company were made.
The author personally inspected these ledgers. The following are some extracts from a news account in the New York "Times," issue of March 7, 1909, of the exhibition of the ledgers:
"They cover the business of the Northern Department from 1817 to 1835, and consist of six folio volumes of about 1,000 pages each, in two stout traveling cases, fitted with compartments, lock and key. It is said that these books were missing for nearly seventy-five years, and recently escaped destruction by the merest accident.
"The first entry is April 1, 1817. There are two columns, one for British and the other for American money. An entry, May 3, 1817, shows that Lewis Cass, then Governor of Michigan Territory and afterward Democratic candidate for the Presidency against Gen. Zachary Taylor, the successful Whig candidate, took about $35,000 of the Astor money from Montreal to Detroit, in consideration of something which is not set down."