William Henry Low (1795 – March 22, 1834) was an American entrepreneur, businessman and trader from

Salem, Massachusetts Salem ( ) is a historic coastal city in Essex County, Massachusetts, located on the North Shore (Massachusetts), North Shore of Greater Boston. Continuous settlement by Europeans began in 1626 with English colonists. Salem would become one of the ...

, who was one of the American pioneers of the

Old China Trade The Old China Trade () refers to the early commerce between the Qing Empire and the United States under the Canton System, spanning from shortly after the end of the American Revolutionary War in 1783 to the Treaty of Wanghia in 1844. The Old C ...

. In 1828, having settled in Canton, China, Low was admitted as a partner of the Russell & Co. trading company, as a replacement chosen by founding partner Philip Ammidon. Senior partner of the firm, he retired in 1833 after having recruited his nephew,

Abiel Abbot Low Abiel Abbot Low (February 7, 1811 – January 7, 1893) was an American entrepreneur, businessman, trader and philanthropist who gained most of his fortune from the China trade, importing teas, porcelains, and silk, and building and operating a ...

, and died in the

Cape of Good Hope The Cape of Good Hope ( af, Kaap die Goeie Hoop ) ;''Kaap'' in isolation: pt, Cabo da Boa Esperança is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa. A common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is ...

the following year; while returning home in the company of his wife and niece, the diarist Harriet Low.

References

1795 births 1834 deaths American merchants People from Salem, Massachusetts 19th-century American businesspeople {{US-business-bio-1790s-stub