American merchant and abolitionist, born in Northampton, MA, on the 22nd of May 1786. Receiving an ordinary common-school education, he started in business for himself in Portland, ME. In 1814 he removed to New York City and opened a wholesale dry-goods house, in which business he was very successful and made a great deal of money. He was noted for his charities, and was identified with a number of institutions and religious societies. In 1828 he founded the New York Journal of Commerce, and in 1833, being warmly interested in the slave question, he established the Emancipator. So thoroughly was he identified with this movement that on October 2. 1835, he was chosen president of the New York City Antislavery Society, and during the years of his commercial success he gave that organization $1,000 a month, until, unfortunately, his firm failed. He died in New Haven, CT, on the 23rd of July 1865.
