Charles Apthorp

Charles Apthorp (1698–1758) was a British-born merchant in 18th-century Boston, Massachusetts. He ran his import business from Merchants Row, and "in his day he was called the richest man in Boston." He acted for the British government, and supported King's Chapel.

Charles Apthorp was baptised 28 March 1697 at St Botolph Bishopsgate, London, England, to East Apthorp and Susan Ward. [she was not connected to a Lord Bixle]

Charles Apthorp emigrated with his parents to New England after 1698. In 1713 his father died in Boston. In Boston, Massachusetts he was a commissary and paymaster for the British military forces and established a mercantile business. Apthorp was a successful, wealthy man, with "imperial trading connections".

Among the goods imported and/or sold through Apthorp on Merchants Row in Boston were "choice madera wines, ... a parcel of Russia duck and several sorts of European goods"; "British duck of all sorts"; "choice good sea coal, ... several second hand cables, little the worse for wear, and anchors suitable, with window glass of most sorts, and a parcel of lead and shot"; "a good new still and worm of about 600 gallons"; salt; "a parcel of guns, 4-pounders, with carriages and shott, also a parcel of swivel-guns with shott suitable;" a "well fitted" 50-ton sloop"; and "a brigantine about 90 tuns, and three years old, now lying at the Long Wharfe".

Apthorp was a "venerable slave importer and one of the richest men in Boston" by 1746. At that time, "slave-for-sale" ads appeared in the weekly Boston Gazette. Between 1719 and 1781 there were about 2,300 slave notices for about 2,000 slaves. In the 1730s and 1740s he repeatedly traded in slaves, for instance he posted an ad in the Boston Gazette: "a parcel of likely negros just imported".

In 1733 Apthorp acted as agent for a man seeking his servant, Hannah Smyth, who had run away with a stolen diamond "and has lately been seen here in Boston." He performed a similar role in 1742, authorized to furnish "five pounds reward" for the return of a "negro man named Jack about 35 years old" to "his master Capt. Stephen Eastwick." In 1756 Apthorp & Son served as agent for someone looking for an anchor lost on Cape Cod "with two iron clasps on one of the flukes, a solid pine buoy, and buoy-rope."

...
Wikipedia