Bates family
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| Ethnicity | British American |
|---|---|
| Current region |
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. Lewiston, Maine, U.S. |
| Place of origin | United States and Britain |
| Connected families |
Alden Family Gilbert Family |
| Estate | The Campus of Bates College Frye Street Historic District |
The Bates family (/beɪtɛs/ BAY-ts) is an American political and banking family from Maine and Massachusetts whose members include the first and only Commander of the Devonshire Forces as well as a prominent member of the prestigious Hell Fire Club, the 26th U.S. Attorney General serving under Abraham Lincoln, the second Governor of Missouri, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for Arkansas, and a prominet textile tycoon who founded the Bates Manufacturing Company and Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. The family includes various merchants, politicians, inventors, clergymen, artists, and socialites.
The family is related to the prominent political Gilbert family and indirectly to the Alden family, the first family on the Mayflower.
The prominence of the Bates family began with its patriarch, Benjamin Bates I (1651–1710), who worked his way into the legal world as a young boy, in Edinburgh, England, and soon gained a reputation for winning arguments and debates among the most senior councilmen in his town. His rapid ascension through the ranks of the law landed him high paying commissions and high-profile cases, eventually leading him into banking. Little is written about the first Benjamin Bates, and he is most noted for being survived by Benjamin Bates II, is often noted as the "revival patriarch" as his life and pursuits landed him in the elite Hellfire Club hosted by Francis Dashwood. Using the considerable sum bestowed upon to him by his father he lived a life of pure excess and began collecting art to soothe his restlessness. Benjamin Bates III, went on to become a prominent merchant of food and working tools. The family can trace their ancestors to John Alden who was crew member on the historic 1620 voyage of the Pilgrim ship Mayflower, through the union of Elkanah Bates (1779 - 1841) and Hannah Copeland. The family assumed their family crest upon their marriage. Alden's daughter Ruth married John Bass, and were survived by Benjamin, Williams and eventually Hannah Copeland, who began the lineage with the Bates family. The Bates family starts in England but moved to and from Massachusetts periodically, with certain members being born abroad and others being born in New England. Deeply religious the family founded numerous (some now defunct) religious institutions and centers. Alfred Bates fought in the American Revolution as a Captain, and later became a brigadier general for the Massachusetts State Militia.
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