Peter Faneuil

Peter Faneuil (June 20, 1700 – March 3, 1743) was a wealthy American colonial merchant, slave trader, and philanthropist who donated Faneuil Hall to Boston.

The eldest child of one of three Huguenot brothers who fled France with considerable wealth after the 1685 revocation of the Edict of Nantes, Peter Faneuil was born on June 20, 1700 in New Rochelle, New York to Benjamin Faneuil and Anne Bureau. Having emigrated to America about a decade earlier and become freemen of Massachusetts Bay in 1691, Peter's father, Benjamin, and his uncle, Andrew, had subsequently been early settlers of New Rochelle. Shortly thereafter, Andrew made Boston his permanent residence. Benjamin married Anne Bureau in 1699 and they had at least two sons and three daughters who lived to maturity.

Little is known of Peter's boyhood. His father, prominent and fairly well-to-do, died in 1719 when Peter was 18, and soon Peter, his brother, Benjamin Jr., and his sister Mary moved to Boston. Their widowed, childless uncle Andrew had become one of New England's wealthiest men through shrewd trading and Boston real estate investments. Andrew may have formally adopted his two nephews. Peter Faneuil's first claim to fame occurred in 1728 when he helped his brother-in-law Henry Phillips escape to France after he killed Benjamin Woodbridge in the first duel ever to take place in Boston.

Peter Faneuil entered Boston's commission and shipping business and soon proved a competent trader, assisting his uncle in running a lucrative mercantile establishment that traded with Antigua, Barbados, Spain, the Canary Islands, and England, only a few of the places from which Faneuil's correspondence survives.

Prominent in the Triangular trade, Peter shipped slaves to the West Indies and brought molasses and sugar to the Colonies. He handled merchandise from Europe and the Caribbean, exported rum, fish, and produce, and engaged in shipbuilding. When he ventured both ship and cargo in transatlantic or coastal commerce, he customarily shared the risk with others. Charging 5% for handling consignments, he used advanced business methods and kept careful records. Fishing-grounds agents kept him informed of market prices and furthered his commercial connections. Not all of his trade was legal. When in 1736 his ship Providence was seized for exchanging fish and oil for French gold, he complained that only the "caprice" of the admiralty judge, a "Vile" man, was responsible for "Impositions" on a "fair trader" that was "in no way founded on law and justice."

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