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Samuel Appleton (June 22, 1766 – July 12, 1853) was an American merchant and philanthropist, active in
Appleton was born in 
He also later established cotton mills at Waltham and
''The Will of Samuel Appleton''
with remarks by one of the executors * Daguerreotype of Samuel Appleton from a Sotheby's sale: http://www.sothebys.com/en/catalogues/ecatalogue.html/2008/photographs-n08424#/r=/en/ecat.fhtml.N08424.html+r.m=/en/ecat.lot.N08424.html/168/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Appleton, Samuel 1766 births 1853 deaths Appleton family Colonial American merchants People from New Ipswich, New Hampshire American philanthropists People of colonial New Hampshire Burials at Mount Auburn Cemetery
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...
, Massachusetts
Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...
, and Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...
.
Biography
Appleton was born in New Ipswich, New Hampshire
New Ipswich is a town in Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 5,204 at the 2020 census. New Ipswich, situated on the Massachusetts border, includes the villages of Bank, Davis, Gibson Four Corners, Highbridge, New ...
, the great-great-grandson of another Samuel Appleton (1625 – May 15, 1696), who was a military and government leader in the Massachusetts Bay Colony
The Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630–1691), more formally the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, was an English settlement on the east coast of North America around the Massachusetts Bay, the northernmost of the several colonies later reorganized as the ...
and Province of Massachusetts Bay
The Province of Massachusetts Bay was a colony in British America which became one of the Thirteen Colonies, thirteen original states of the United States. It was chartered on October 7, 1691, by William III of England, William III and Mary II ...
and a commander
Commander (commonly abbreviated as Cmdr.) is a common naval officer rank. Commander is also used as a rank or title in other formal organizations, including several police forces. In several countries this naval rank is termed frigate captain.
...
of the Massachusetts militia
A militia () is generally an army or some other fighting organization of non-professional soldiers, citizens of a country, or subjects of a state, who may perform military service during a time of need, as opposed to a professional force of r ...
during King Philip's War
King Philip's War (sometimes called the First Indian War, Metacom's War, Metacomet's War, Pometacomet's Rebellion, or Metacom's Rebellion) was an armed conflict in 1675–1676 between indigenous inhabitants of New England and New England coloni ...
who led troops during the Attack on Hatfield, Massachusetts
Hatfield is a town in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 3,352 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The census-designated place of Hatfield consists of t ...
and the Great Swamp Fight
The Great Swamp Fight or the Great Swamp Massacre was a crucial battle fought during King Philip's War between the colonial militia of New England and the Narragansett people in December 1675. It was fought near the villages of Kingston and W ...
and also held numerous positions in government and was an opponent of Governor Sir Edmund Andros
Sir Edmund Andros (6 December 1637 – 24 February 1714) was an English colonial administrator in British America. He was the governor of the Dominion of New England during most of its three-year existence. At other times, Andros served ...
. His family had come there from Ipswich, Massachusetts
Ipswich is a coastal town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 13,785 at the 2020 census. Home to Willowdale State Forest and Sandy Point State Reservation, Ipswich includes the southern part of Plum Island. A reside ...
where relatives lived into the present. From 1790 to 1792, he cleared fields in Maine
Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and north ...
for farming. He also taught school. For a time he kept a store in Ipswich
Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line r ...
. In 1794, he moved to Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
where he became an importer in partnership with his brother Nathan
Nathan or Natan may refer to:
People
*Nathan (given name), including a list of people and characters with this name
*Nathan (surname)
*Nathan (prophet), a person in the Hebrew Bible
* Nathan (son of David), biblical figure, son of King David an ...
as S. & N. Appleton, buying European dry goods at auction and for resale to country traders in exchange for homespun cloth as well as pot and pearl ash for export to Britain.
He also later established cotton mills at Waltham and Lowell, Massachusetts
Lowell () is a city in Massachusetts, in the United States. Alongside Cambridge, It is one of two traditional seats of Middlesex County. With an estimated population of 115,554 in 2020, it was the fifth most populous city in Massachusetts as of ...
. After 1799 he passed much of his time in Britain, and at age 53 married a widow, Mrs. Mary Gore, with whom he had no children. He retired from business in 1823.
After retirement he devoted much of his fortune to charity, including his gift funding the Appleton Cabinet at Amherst College
Amherst College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zephaniah Swift Moore, Amherst is the third oldest institution of higher educatio ...
, built to house the Hitchcock Ichnological Cabinet, and the Appleton Chapel
The Memorial Church of Harvard University is a building on the campus of Harvard University. It is an inter-denominational Protestantism, Protestant church.
History Predecessors
The first distinct building for worship at Harvard University was H ...
at Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
. He endowed the academy at New Ipswich with a fund which secured its permanence, and founded the professorship of natural philosophy of Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...
, with a gift of $10,000.
Appleton served as a vestryman
A vestryman is a member of his local church's vestry, or leading body.Anstice, Henry (1914). ''What Every Warden and Vestryman Should Know.'' Church literature press He is not a member of the clergy.Potter, Henry Codman (1890). ''The Offices of Wa ...
of King's Chapel
King's Chapel is an American independent christianity, Christian unitarianism, unitarian congregation affiliated with the Unitarian Universalist Association that is "unitarian Christian in theology, anglicanism, Anglican in worship, and congrega ...
from 1830 to 1840, and a monument to him sits on the north wall of the chapel.Henry Wilder Foote, Henry Herbert Edes, John Carroll Perkins, Winslow Warren, Annals of King's Chapel from the Puritan age of New England to the present day, Volume 2 (Little, Brown, 1896) pg. 533-535 https://books.google.com/books?id=yfMWAAAAYAAJ&source=gbs_navlinks_s Wilson's biographical directory of Boston's business aristocracy, published 1848, noted that it was “to the credit of Samuel Appleton, that he commenced life with a single four-pence half penny, paid to him by a drover who passed his father's house, for assistance in driving attle
Debris (, ) is rubble, wreckage, ruins, litter and discarded garbage/refuse/trash, scattered remains of something destroyed, or, as in geology, large rock fragments left by a melting glacier, etc. Depending on context, ''debris'' can refer to ...
”
At his death, Appleton's fortune amounted to nearly $1,000,000, and he had given away nearly as much as that during his lifetime. By his will he placed property to the amount of $200,000 in the hands of his executors, “to be by them applied, disposed of, and distributed, for scientific, literary, religious, and charitable purposes.”
The Samuel Appleton Building located on 110-114 Milk Street, Boston is currently under study as a Boston Landmark
A Boston Landmark is a designation by the Boston Landmarks Commission for historic buildings and sites throughout the city of Boston based on the grounds that it has historical, social, cultural, architectural or aesthetic significance to New Engla ...
by the Boston Landmarks Commission The Boston Landmarks Commission (BLC) is the historic preservation agency for the City of Boston. The commission was created by state legislation i1975
History
Urban renewal in the United States started with the Housing Act of 1949, part of Preside ...
.
Historic ship
The 1846 ship '' Samuel Appleton'', 808 tons, was built by P. Curtis in Medford, MA, and owned by the prominent merchantDaniel Pinckney Parker
Daniel Pinckney Parker (1781-1850) was a prominent merchant, shipbuilder, and businessman in 19th-century Boston, Massachusetts.
Biography
Daniel Pinckney Parker was born on August 30, 1781, in Southborough, Massachusetts, to Benjamin and Abigail ...
of Boston.
Notes
References
* Mann, Anthony, "How 'poor country boys' became Boston Brahmins: The rise of the Appletons and the Lawrences in ante-bellum Massachusetts", Historical Journal of Massachusetts, Winter 2003. * Peabody, Ephraim, "Notice of Samuel Appleton, Esq.", New England Historical and Genealogical Review, 8 (January, 1854), 12. * Wilson, Thomas L V, ''The Aristocracy of Boston; who they are, and what they were; being a history of Business and Business Men of Boston, for the last forty years'', Boston : Thomas Wilson, 1848. *External links
* *''The Will of Samuel Appleton''
with remarks by one of the executors * Daguerreotype of Samuel Appleton from a Sotheby's sale: http://www.sothebys.com/en/catalogues/ecatalogue.html/2008/photographs-n08424#/r=/en/ecat.fhtml.N08424.html+r.m=/en/ecat.lot.N08424.html/168/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Appleton, Samuel 1766 births 1853 deaths Appleton family Colonial American merchants People from New Ipswich, New Hampshire American philanthropists People of colonial New Hampshire Burials at Mount Auburn Cemetery