Carroll, Daniel (22 July 1730–07 May 1796), planter and merchant, was born in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, the son of Daniel Carroll I, a large plantation owner and merchant, and Eleanor Darnall. Carroll lived at a time when Maryland law denied Catholics the right to vote, hold office, worship, erect churches, or provide a formal education for their children. Aristocratic families sent their sons to the Jesuit-owned Bohenia Manor Academy in Cecil County, Maryland, for elementary schooling and then to St. Omer’s College in French Flanders for a solid scholastic education. Daniel Carroll, his brother ...
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Carroll, Daniel (1730-1796), planter and merchant
Virginia Geiger
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Carter, Robert (1663-1732), merchant-planter and public official
Emory G. Evans
Carter, Robert (1663–04 August 1732), merchant-planter and public official, was born in Lancaster County, Virginia, the son of John Carter, a wealthy merchant-planter and attorney, and Sarah Ludlow. John Carter died in 1669 leaving Robert 1,000 acres and one-third of his personal estate. He also provided that an indentured servant be “bought for him … to teach him his books either in English or Latine according to his capacity.” Later, probably around 1672, he was sent to London by his elder brother John where he spent six years receiving a grammar school education. In London Robert lived with Arthur Bailey, a prosperous merchant, from whom he must have learned about the intricacies of the tobacco trade. Little else is known about his early years, but in 1688 he married Judith Armistead, with whom he had five children. In 1701 he married Elizabeth Landon Willis; this union produced an additional ten children. Five sons and five daughters lived to maturity, and all the sons received an English education. The death of his brother John in 1690, followed shortly by the death of his daughter and half brother, resulted in Carter inheriting the bulk of a large estate that included more than 9,000 acres of land and 115 slaves. Carter, already a man of substance, quickly added to his wealth through planting and mercantile activity, including a significant involvement in the slave trade. He also began to acquire large amounts of land, a process that was aided by the two terms he served as agent (1702–1712, 1719–1732) for the Fairfax family, the proprietors of the Northern Neck. The Northern Neck was that vast area of land between the Rappahannock and the Potomac rivers, stretching to the headwaters of the latter. At Carter’s death it was reported that he left 300,000 acres of land, 1,000 slaves, and £10,000 in cash, and it appears that this estimate was not far off the mark....
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Delafield, John (1786-1853), merchant, banker, and farmer
Samuel Willard Crompton
Delafield, John (22 January 1786–22 October 1853), merchant, banker, and farmer, was born in New York City, the son of John Delafield, a merchant, and Ann Hallett. The younger Delafield grew up in the city and on his father’s summer residence, “Sunwick,” on the East River, opposite Blackwell’s Island. Because of his father’s success in the merchant trade, Delafield enjoyed every privilege in his youth and attended Columbia College. Upon his graduation in 1802, he set out at once in his father’s footsteps by becoming a confidential agent and supercargo aboard a merchant vessel....
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Forstall, Edmond Jean (1794-1873), merchant, banker, and sugar planter
Irene D. Neu
Forstall, Edmond Jean (07 November 1794–16 November 1873), merchant, banker, and sugar planter, was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, the son of Edouard Pierre Forstall and Celeste de la Villebeauve. The father’s occupation is uncertain, but in Edmond’s youth several members of the Forstall family, Edouard perhaps one of them, were active in Louisiana commerce. Record of Edmond’s education is lacking, but at the age of twelve he went to work for a merchant. In his adulthood he was fluent in English as well as French and read and wrote widely in both languages. As early as 1818 he was named a director of the Louisiana State Bank. By 1819 he was associated with the New Orleans firm of Gordon, Grant & Company, and in 1823 when the firm reorganized as Gordon & Forstall, Forstall became managing partner. In July 1823 he married Clara Durel; the couple had eleven children, one of whom died in infancy....
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Habersham, James (June 1715?–28 August 1775), planter-merchant in colonial Georgia, royal councilor, and acting governor
W. Calvin Smith
Habersham, James ( June 1715?–28 August 1775), planter-merchant in colonial Georgia, royal councilor, and acting governor, was born in Beverly, Yorkshire, England, the son of James Habersham, a dyer and innkeeper, and Elizabeth Sission. His mother died when he was seven; subsequently his father apprenticed him to his uncle, Joseph Habersham, a London merchant. From him he mastered the import trade in hides, indigo, and sugar. By the age of twenty-one he had assumed charge of two sugar-refining houses connected with his uncle’s interests. In 1736 Habersham came under the religious influence of ...
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Hazen, Moses (1733-1803), army officer, landowner, and merchant
Allan S. Everest
Hazen, Moses (01 June 1733–05 February 1803), army officer, landowner, and merchant, was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, the son of Moses Hazen, a merchant, and Abigail White. Hazen was apprenticed to a tanner and later operated independently. The outbreak of the French and Indian War lured him away, and he remained in the military during two great wars. In 1755 he enlisted in a British colonial unit and served under Colonel ...
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Heathcote, Caleb (1666-1721), merchant, manor lord, and Anglican activist
Eugene R. Sheridan
Heathcote, Caleb (06 March 1666–01 March 1721), merchant, manor lord, and Anglican activist, was born in Derbyshire, England, the son of Gilbert Heathcote, a trader in hides and iron who served as mayor of Chesterfield, England, and Anne Dickens. While living in England Heathcote became a merchant specializing in trade with New York, where he settled in 1692 after the woman to whom he was betrothed fell in love with his brother Samuel and married him instead....
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Jenifer, Daniel of St. Thomas (1723-1790), planter, merchant, and political leader of the American revolutionary era
Ronald Hoffman
Jenifer, Daniel of St. Thomas (1723–16 November 1790), planter, merchant, and political leader of the American revolutionary era, was born in Charles County, Maryland, the son of Daniel Jenifer, a chirurgeon, and Elizabeth Mason. A fourth-generation native known to his contemporaries as “the Major,” Jenifer inherited 504 acres of land in Charles County on his father’s death circa 1729, and by 1766 he had purchased at least 2,000 acres more. He resided at “Retreat,” his Charles County home near Port Tobacco, for many years, but by 1766 he was living in Maryland’s capital, Annapolis. During the next two decades he purchased more than 3,000 acres in Anne Arundel County, including “Stepney,” an 800-acre plantation near South River, just outside Annapolis, where he lived from about 1784 until his death. In addition to his activities as a planter, Jenifer was a partner in the mercantile firm of Jenifer and Hooe and owner of the ship ...
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Laurens, Henry (1724-1792), planter-merchant and revolutionary war statesman
C. James Taylor
Laurens, Henry (24 February 1724–08 December 1792), planter-merchant and revolutionary war statesman, was born in Charleston, South Carolina, the son of John Laurens, a saddler, and Esther Grasset. The Laurens family had fled La Rochelle, France, as Huguenot refugees in 1682. After stops in London, Ireland, and New York, they settled in Charleston about 1715. Laurens received in his own words “the best education” that the provincial community could offer. In 1744 he sailed for London to serve a three-year clerkship in James Crokatt’s counting house. Laurens married Eleanor Ball in 1750. They had twelve children, but only four survived childhood. ...
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Laurens, Henry (1724-1792)
Maker: John Singleton Copley
In
Henry Laurens. Reproduction of a painting by John Singleton Copley, 1781. Courtesy of the National Archives (NWDNS-148-CP-213).
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Livingston, Robert (1654-1728), colonial merchant, landowner, and politician
Ned Landsman
Livingston, Robert (13 December 1654–01 October 1728), colonial merchant, landowner, and politician, was born in Ancrum, Scotland, the son of the Reverend John Livingstone, a minister of the Church of Scotland, and Janet Fleeming. Livingston’s father faced the threat of prosecution as a noted Presbyterian minister in a Scottish church that was moving strongly toward Episcopacy in the aftermath of the Restoration of Charles II, and in 1663 the family fled Scotland for the Protestant haven at Rotterdam. The city of Rotterdam had a large community of Scottish merchants in the seventeenth century, and at a young age Livingston began to engage in commerce, possibly under the tutelage of two brothers-in-law who were active traders in that city....
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Manigault, Gabriel (1704-1781), merchant and planter
James M. Clifton
Manigault, Gabriel (21 April 1704–05 June 1781), merchant and planter, was born in Charleston, South Carolina, the son of Pierre Manigault and Judith Giton. Manigault’s father, an immigrant Huguenot, had engaged in farming in the Georgetown area before moving to Charleston. There, after several years as a cooper and victualer, he turned to distilling brandy and rum and then to merchandising, laying the foundation before his death in 1729 of what was to become, under Gabriel Manigault, the largest fortune in South Carolina (and quite possibly in America) before the Revolution. Manigault (without formal college training) became a wealthy merchant, operating in a number of markets, especially the West Indies and the northern mainland colonies. He exported in his own fleet of ships regional items such as rice, naval stores, lumber, shingles, leather, deerskins, corn, beef, peas, and pork and imported such commodities as rum, sugar, wine, oil, textiles, and wheat flour. He was also a private banker, lending vast sums from his great personal resources....
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Nelson, Thomas (1738-1789), merchant-planter and public official
Emory G. Evans
Nelson, Thomas (26 December 1738–04 January 1789), merchant-planter and public official, was born in Yorktown, Virginia, the son of William Nelson (1711–1772), a prosperous merchant-planter, and Elizabeth Burwell. Educated first at home and then at a private school in Gloucester County, Nelson was sent to England in 1753. There, under the care of London merchant Edward Hunt, he attended grammar school at Hackney, near London, followed by three years at Christ College, Cambridge. Returning home in 1761, he married Lucy Grymes the following year. The union produced thirteen children, eleven of whom lived to maturity....
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Nelson, William (1711-1772), merchant, planter, and public official
Emory G. Evans
Nelson, William (1711–19 November 1772), merchant, planter, and public official, was born in Yorktown, Virginia, the son of Thomas Nelson, a merchant, and Margaret Reade. His father sent him to England for his education in 1722. Part of his time in England was spent in Penrith, Cumberland, but the details of his education are not known. Clearly the stay was a long one; the first indication that he was back in Virginia was in 1732 when he was appointed to the York County Court as a justice of the peace. Nelson then entered the family mercantile firm, a flourishing business that included periodic involvement in the slave trade. By this time he was being described as “a young Gentleman of merit and fortune.” In 1738 he married Elizabeth Carter Burwell from an old and distinguished Virginia family; they had six sons. (The eldest son, ...
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Perdue, Frank (1920-2005), chicken farmer and merchant
Dennis Wepman
Perdue, Frank (09 May 1920–31 May 2005), chicken farmer and merchant, was born Franklin Parsons Perdue in Salisbury, Maryland, the son of Arthur W. Perdue, an agent for Railway Express and part-time egg farmer descended from seventeenth-century Huguenot settlers of the area, and Pearl Parsons. Frank helped out on the farm as a child and became familiar with all aspects of caring for chickens, at the age of ten raising to productive maturity some culled hens that had been intended for destruction. Perdue graduated from Salisbury High School in 1939 and spent two years at Salisbury State Teachers College, but family financial problems and a lack of interest in teaching led him to return to his father's farm once he had earned a two-year degree in 1941. As the market for meat increased during World War II, the family began to focus on the production of broiler chickens rather than eggs, and Perdue made a serious study of the nutrition and care of poultry. The business began to prosper, and when he became president of Perdue Farms after his father's death in 1952 it was averaging some $6 million in annual sales. In 1945 he married Madeline Godfrey, a college classmate, with whom he had four children. They divorced in 1976. Although some sources, including his obituary in the ...
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Philipse, Frederick (1626-1702), manorial landowner and merchant
Jacob Judd
Philipse, Frederick (1626–1702), manorial landowner and merchant, was born Vrydrych or Frydrych Flypse in Bolswaert, Friesland, the Netherlands, the son of Vrydrych Flypse, a slater, and Margaret Dacres. Little is known of his early youth beyond the fact that he was apprenticed to a carpenter at an early age. The earliest reference to him as a resident of New Amsterdam occurred in 1653, when he appeared as a carpenter in the employ of the Dutch West India Company. He plied his craft and soon sought to increase his opportunities by purchasing a Small Burgher Right, granting him the privilege of trading on a limited scale in his own account. He apparently was successful, for by 1660 he was categorized as “Frederick Philipse, late the Director’s carpenter” and henceforth became noted as a merchant....
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Pollock, Oliver (1737?–17 December 1823), merchant, planter, and American revolutionary patriot
Light Townsend Cummins
Pollock, Oliver (1737?–17 December 1823), merchant, planter, and American revolutionary patriot, was born near Donagheady, Northern Ireland, the son of Jared (also spelled Jaret) Pollock and his wife, about whom little else is known. Raised in a farming and linen-producing region near Londonderry, Pollock learned the merchant trade. He emigrated to Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in 1760 after the death of his mother, accompanied to America by a younger brother and his father. For two years thereafter, he worked as a merchant associated with commercial houses operated by Daniel Clark and William Plumstead. Pollock went to Havana in 1762 when that port fell to the British navy during the Seven Years’ War. He specialized in trade between Cuba and British ports in North America. Taking advantage of his Roman Catholic Irish background, Pollock remained in Havana after the city was returned to the Spanish by the Peace of Paris, 1763....
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Redwood, Abraham (1709-1788), Rhode Island merchant and Antigua planter
Arthur J. Worrall
Redwood, Abraham (15 April 1709–08 March 1788), Rhode Island merchant and Antigua planter, was born in Antigua, the son of Abraham Redwood, an Antigua plantation owner, and Mehitable Langford. Redwood’s family moved to Newport, Rhode Island, in 1712, probably for the more healthful living conditions it offered in comparison with Antigua. Although for a time they lived in Salem, Massachusetts, by 1717 they had returned to Newport. Abraham was the third son but inherited his father’s estate as his elder brothers died early in life. A likely prospective husband because of inherited wealth in Antigua and Newport, at the age of seventeen Abraham married Martha Coggeshall, who was like him a Quaker. They married outside the care of the Quaker meeting, that is, in a civil marriage contrary to the Quaker discipline. For this defiance of Quaker marriage rules, the young couple and her father, Abraham Coggeshall, were brought under dealing (faced a disciplinary hearing) by the Rhode Island Monthly Meeting and compelled to acknowledge their misdoings, the young couple for marrying out and Coggeshall for encouraging their “disorderly marriage.” They had nine children....
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Stearns, Abel (1798-1871), California pioneer merchant and ranchero
Michael Magliari
Stearns, Abel (09 February 1798–23 August 1871), California pioneer merchant and ranchero, California pioneer merchant and ranchero, was born in Lunenburg, Massachusetts, the son of Levi Stearns and Elizabeth Goodrich (occupations unknown). When his parents died within three months of each other in 1810, Stearns went to sea and rose from merchant sailor to supercargo before acquiring his own trading schooner in 1822. By then, a failed marriage to Persis (maiden name unknown) between 1817 and 1820 had resulted in the birth of a child in 1819. In the meantime, Stearns traveled to the East and West Indies, China, and South America before abandoning the sea, the United States, and apparently his own child in 1826. Settling in Mexico City, Stearns became a naturalized Mexican citizen in 1828 and moved to Monterey, California, the following year....
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Van Rensselaer, Jeremias (bap. 18 May 1632), merchant and third director of the patroonship of Rensselaerswijck
David William Voorhees
Van Rensselaer, Jeremias (bap. 18 May 1632), merchant and third director of the patroonship of Rensselaerswijck, was born in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, the son of Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, a diamond merchant and first patroon of Rensselaerswijck, and Anna van Welij. His education as a merchant came principally from his older brother Jan Baptist, who arrived in new Netherland in 1651 as the second director of Rensselaerswijck. On 3 August 1654 Jeremias sailed from Amsterdam to join his brother in the management of the family’s colony. He went back to Holland the following year but returned to Rennselaerswijck in 1656....
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