Isaac Royall, Jr.

Isaac Royall Jr. (1719–1781) was a colonial American landowner who played an important role in the creation of Harvard Law School.

Royall Jr. was the son of Squire Isaac Royall Sr. (1677-1739) a slave owner, Antiguan plantation owner, slave trader, and justice of the peace. Coming from humble circumstances in North Yarmouth in what was then Massachusetts and now Maine, the elder Royall's family moved to Dorchester, Massachusetts, to avoid Native American attacks. Royall Sr. subsequently made his fortune in the trade of slaves, rum, and sugar; in 1700, at age 23, Royall's father moved to Antigua and was the part owner of a Massachusetts slaving ship. Isaac Royall Sr.'s son Isaac Jr. was born in Antigua in 1719; a daughter, Penelope Royall, was born there in 1724. The Royall family then faced turmoil: a bad drought in 1725, a massive hurricane in 1733, earthquakes in 1735, and both a smallpox epidemic and a slave revolt in 1736.

Due to these events, Royall Sr. decided to return to New England. Beginning in 1732, in anticipation of his move, Royall began purchasing a 500-acre estate in Charlestown, Massachusetts (now Medford) near the Mystic River, which he named Ten Hills Farm. In 1737, the family moved to the estate, bringing with them at least 27 African slaves. The estate includes three-story Georgian mansion (expanded from an earlier, more modest structure), a carriage house, a stable, an "out kitchen," and a number of barns. After Issac Sr. died in 1739, Isaac Jr., then twenty years old, inherited his father's estate, variously described as "immense" and "small but prosperous." Isaac Jr. inherited not only Ten Hills Farm (which is now the Isaac Royall House, a museum containing the only slave quarters in the northeast United States) but also eighteen of his father's slaves and his father's plantation in Antigua.

...
Wikipedia