Elisha Peck (Merchant)

Elisha Peck (1789-1851) was a Massachusetts-born merchant who formed a partnership with Anson Green Phelps. He ran the British side of their business from Liverpool for about thirteen years. The partnership ended in 1834 after an accident at their New York warehouse claimed the lives of seven people. Their assets were divided and Peck took ownership of the metal manufacturing plants at Haverstraw, New York. Phelps continued with the mercantile business that he had developed with Peck, forming a new company called Phelps Dodge.

Peck was born in Lenox, Massachusetts; his parents were Lucretia Pattison and Elisha Peck, whose ancestors had landed in America from Essex, England, in about 1635. Peck left Lenox at an early age and moved to Berlin, Connecticut, becoming involved in business with his uncle, Shubael Pattison, a tinsmith and trader. He also married Pattison's daughter, Chloe, in about 1814.

Shubael Pattison was the son of Edward Patterson, a tinsmith of Scots/Irish Presbyterian descent, credited with bringing the manufacture of tinware to America. Before this time tinware utensils were normally imported from Britain. In addition to making and selling tinware, Shubael Pattison also ran a general store in Berlin and dealt in furs.

Anson Green Phelps was born in 1781 and served an apprenticeship in the saddler's trade in Hartford, Connecticut. He found a market for his leather goods in South Carolina and expanded his business by shipping cotton from there to New York. The cotton was then sold to England and in return Phelps imported manufactured goods for sale in America. He also started to run a small shipping company and moved his business from Hartford to New York, where he formed a partnership in 1821 with Peck. In America the partnership was called Phelps & Peck, located at 179/181 Front Street, and in Britain it was called Peck & Phelps, operating from Liverpool. The company imported metals but also diversified, selling such things as furs, feathers, and tobacco. They distributed goods along the Atlantic seaboard using their coasters, and peddlers took their wares to sell at inland settlements. The opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 and the rapidly expanding West also provided an unlimited market for their manufactured goods. Between 1821 and 1824 their annual average profit was approaching forty thousand dollars.

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