DeLancey Astor Kane the mother of Peter Augustus Jay), and Sybil Kent Kane. He was the grandson of Walter Langdon and Dorothea (née Astor) Langdon and the great-grandson of John Jacob Astor. He was a cousin of Lt. Col. John Jacob Astor IV. His paternal lineage descended from John O'Kane who emigrated to the country in 1752 from County Londonderry and Antrim, Ireland. During the American Revolutionary War, O'Kane (who dropped the "'O" once in America) was living at Sharyvogne, his estate in Dutchess County, which was confiscated after the War due to his Loyalist times. His eldest son, John Jr., stayed and
John Jacob Astor purchased ten tons of Turkish opium, then shipped the contraband item to Canton on the packet ship "Macedonian". Astor later left the China opium trade and sold solely to the United Kingdom. Astor's business rebounded in 1817 after the U.S. Congress passed a protectionist law that barred foreign fur traders from U.S. territories. The American Fur Company came to dominate trading in the area around the Great Lakes. John Jacob Astor had a townhouse at 233 Broadway in Manhattan and a country estate, Hellgate in Northern New York City. In 1822, Astor established the Robert Stuart House on Mackinac Island