Israel Thorndike
| Israel Thorndike | |
|---|---|
| Born |
April 30, 1755 Beverly, Massachusetts |
| Died | May 9, 1832 (aged 77) Boston, Massachusetts |
| Occupation | Cooper, privateer, shipping magnate, real estate speculator, manufacturer |
| Organization | Brown and Thorndike |
| Net worth | USD $1.8 million at the time of his death |
| Spouse(s) | Mercy Trask, Anna Dodge, Sarah Dana |
Israel Thorndike (1755–1832) was an American merchant, politician, and industrialist. He made a fortune in privateering and the China trade, was active in Federalist party politics during the Thomas Jefferson and James Madison administrations, and later was one of the largest financiers of the early Industrial Revolution in the United States.
Thorndike was born in Beverly, Massachusetts on April 30, 1755. He went to sea at an early age, and in 1772 formed a partnership with Moses Brown that would last over two decades. The partnership, called Brown & Thorndike, concentrated on trade in the Caribbean and in coastal carrying along the North American coast. Upon the outbreak of the American Revolution, he joined the Massachusetts Navy as an officer before turning to privateering. Partnering with a number of fellow merchants in Beverly and Salem, including George Cabot, he invested in numerous privateer ventures that brought him a small fortune by the close of the war.
In the late 1780s, Thorndike began widening his horizons. He invested in the failed Beverly Manufacturing Company, an early attempt to create industrial factories, but withdrew his investment when the venture looked as though it would fail. He also became involved in politics, and in 1788 was a pro-ratification delegate to the Massachusetts Convention on the question of ratifying the newly proposed U.S. Constitution. As a delegate, he was not known as a speaker, but operated as a backroom whip who was "as efficient as any man" at the Convention in securing ratification. Later, in the 1790s, he entered the early China trade, and over the next decade acquired an enormous fortune, estimated in 1803 to be $400,000.
In 1802, Thorndike was elected to the Massachusetts legislature from Beverly as a member of the Federalist party, and was considered to be a member of its Essex Junto. The Embargo of 1807 had a negative impact on Thorndike's trade, and drove him to become a particularly radical opponent of the Democratic-Republican party under the presidencies of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. In 1810 Thorndike moved from Beverly to Boston, where his mansion became a center for political and social discourse. The term "gerrymander" is attributed to the outcome of a dinner party at Thorndike's Boston home in February 1812, "where Elkanah Tisdale, a miniature painter, drew wings on the salamander shaped map of the new Republican-leaning election district in Essex County." After his move to Boston, Thorndike developed large tracts around today's Downtown Crossing neighborhood in Boston into an elite residential neighborhood.
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