Arthur Tappan

Arthur Tappan (May 22, 1786 – July 23, 1865) was an American abolitionist. He was the brother of Senator Benjamin Tappan, and abolitionist Lewis Tappan and nephew of Harvard Theologian Rev. Dr. David Tappan.

Born in Northampton, Massachusetts to a devoutly Calvinist family, Tappan moved to Boston at the age of 15. In 1807 he established a dry goods business in Portland, Maine.

In 1826, Arthur and his brother Lewis moved to New York City, a center of business and retail trade, and established a silk importing business. In 1827, the brothers founded the New York Journal of Commerce with Samuel F.B. Morse. Arthur and Lewis Tappan were successful businessmen, but commerce was never their foremost interest. They viewed making money as less important than saving souls. They made The Journal of Commerce a publication free of “immoral advertisements.” Both men suffered in the Anti-abolitionist riots (1834), in which anti-abolitionist mobs attacked their property. Arthur Tappan was one of two signatories who issued a disclaimer on behalf of the American Anti-Slavery Society in the aftermath of the riots, emphasising its dedication to abolishing slavery within the existing laws of the United States.

The Panic of 1837 forced the Tappans to close their silk-importing business, and almost scuttled their paper, but the brothers persevered. In the 1840s, they founded another lucrative business enterprise when they opened the first commercial credit-rating service, the Mercantile Agency, a predecessor of Dun and Bradstreet.

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