Fleete, Henry (1602–1661), English colonial merchant and Indian interpreter, was born in County Kent, England, the son of William Fleete, a lawyer and country squire, and Deborah Scott. Residing in America after 1621, Fleete is best known for pioneering the Potomac River beaver trade between the late 1620s and early 1630s and for guiding Lord Baltimore’s colonists to their first Maryland settlement in March 1634....
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Fleete, Henry (1602-1661), English colonial merchant and Indian interpreter
J. Frederick Fausz
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Gould, Benjamin Apthorp (1787-1859), educator and merchant
Edward L. Lach, Jr.
Gould, Benjamin Apthorp (15 June 1787–24 October 1859), educator and merchant, was born in Lancaster, Massachusetts, the son of Benjamin Gould and Griselda (or Grizzel) Apthorp Flagg. Gould’s father was a veteran of the revolutionary war who was reduced to poverty in its aftermath. The family relocated in 1800 to Newburyport, Massachusetts, where Gould spent his youth. He attended Dummer Academy in Newbury, Massachusetts, and apparently also taught school in order to earn money for college. At last able to enter Harvard College at the age of twenty-three, he proved an excellent student, demonstrating particular proficiency in Latin and Greek. His progress was such that in April 1814, before his scheduled graduation, he was offered the position of principal of the Boston Public Latin School....
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Grim, David (1737-1826), tavern keeper, merchant, and antiquarian
Philander D. Chase
Grim, David (28 August 1737–26 March 1826), tavern keeper, merchant, and antiquarian, was born in Stauderheim in the Palatinate, the son of Philip Grimm, a tanner and farmer, and Marguerite Dâher. He and his brothers Peter and Jacob dropped the second m from the family name. Grim immigrated to New York City with his parents and four older siblings in 1739. When Grim was about twelve, a painful lameness in his right leg, which he attributed to rheumatism, threw a hip out of joint and left him with one leg shorter than the other. He nevertheless served aboard two privateers during the French and Indian War. In the summer of 1757 he sailed under Captain Thomas Seymour on the ...
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Heco, Joseph (1837-1897), government interpreter, merchant, and publisher
Roger Daniels
Heco, Joseph (1837–1897), government interpreter, merchant, and publisher, was born Hamada Hikozō in the village of Komiya, near Kobe, Japan, on the eastern shore of the Inland Sea, the second son of a well-to-do farmer. After his father’s death his mother remarried, to a sea captain who adopted him. While on what should have been a brief internal voyage in late 1850, his ship was blown into the Pacific. He and sixteen other persons, after drifting for fifty-two days, were picked up by a U.S. ship that landed at San Francisco in February 1851. The American authorities, planning for Commodore ...
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Heco, Joseph (1837-1897)
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Joseph Heco. As pictured in Hutching's California Magazine, c. 1856–1860. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-93843).
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King, Charles (1789-1867), editor, merchant, and college president
Edward L. Lach, Jr.
King, Charles (16 March 1789–27 September 1867), editor, merchant, and college president, was born in New York, New York, the son of Rufus King, a diplomat, and Mary Alsop. His father, having succeeded Thomas Pinckney as minister plenipotentiary to the Court of St. James, moved with his family to London, England, in 1796. After a few years at a local school, Charles and his older brother John Alsop King were sent in December 1799 to Harrow, a private secondary school in Middlesex, where they had Lord Byron and Robert Peel as classmates. Leaving Harrow in December 1804, King and his brother then attended a branch of the École Polytechnique in Paris, France, for a few months, after which Charles King took a clerking position with Hope & Company, a banking firm in Amsterdam, the Netherlands....
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Livermore, George (1809-1865), merchant, book collector, and supporter of libraries
Kenneth E. Carpenter
Livermore, George (10 July 1809–30 August 1865), merchant, book collector, and supporter of libraries, was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the son of Deacon Nathaniel Livermore and Elizabeth Gleason. He attended public and private schools at Cambridgeport until the age of fourteen. He abandoned the idea of college on health grounds, but he did attend Deerfield Academy in 1827–1828. After employment in the retail business of his older brothers, a stint as a salesman in a dry-goods store in Waltham from 1829 to 1831, and two subsequent years of running that business on his own account, he established a shoe and leather business in 1834. Then in 1838 he became a wool merchant, in partnership with his older brother Isaac. Livermore later wrote to ...
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Penhallow, Samuel (1665-1726), merchant, politician, and historian
David E. Van Deventer
Penhallow, Samuel (02 July 1665–02 December 1726), merchant, politician, and historian, was born at St. Mabyn in Cornwall County, England, the son of Chamond Penhallow, a gentleman farmer, and Ann Tamlyn. Almost nothing is known of Samuel’s childhood, but he must have possessed both intelligence and a strong religious bent, for in 1683, at age eighteen, his father enrolled him in the Newington Green Academy, a school of religious instruction near London founded by ...
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Williams, Jonathan (1750-1815), merchant, lay scientist, and first superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy
John C. Fredriksen
Williams, Jonathan (26 May 1750–16 May 1815), merchant, lay scientist, and first superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Jonathan Williams, a successful merchant, and Grace Harris. His father provided him with the finest education then available. Following several terms at Harvard College, Williams ventured to London in 1770 to conduct family business and finish studying under the aegis of his great-uncle ...
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Williams, Jonathan (1750-1815)
Maker: Thomas Sully
In
Jonathan Williams. Engraving by R. W. Dodson, after a painting by Thomas Sully. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-91220).
