Week 37 – Prosperity

 

A few years ago, my daughter and I were in Washington, DC attending “Continental Congress” the annual get together for the members of Daughters of the American Revolution. We took a day to go sightseeing and although we had done this before, we had never visited the National Gallery of Art.  Walking into Gallery 42B on the ground floor, I caught my breath as I came face to face with one of my Revolutionary Patriots, Captain Joseph Anthony. I had seen his likeness many times before, but until that time I had never once asked where he resided. His nephew, Gilbert Stuart, had captured him in oil on canvas in a 36” x 27 15/16” portrait that is so lifelike, you would think he could carry on conversation. We “hung out” with him for a while, I mean, he was already hanging around, but I finally had to pull myself away. It’s a coincidence that just last week, I wrote about this man’s son.  This is the story of my five-times great-grandfather, Joseph Anthony (Sr).

Joseph Anthony was born on 18 December 1738 in Portsmouth, Rhode Island.  Both his grandfathers, John Albro, and John Anthony had come from England to Rhode Island in the middle of the 17^th century. His father, Albro Anthony, married Susan Heffernan in 1727.  Joseph was the next to the youngest of their seven children.  There is quite a bit written about Joseph’s grandfathers, but very little about his father. It is unclear what type of business Albro was involved in, or how he made his living.

At the age of twenty-three, Joseph married Elizabeth Sheffield, who was twenty-one. Elizabeth’s family had been in Rhode Island since 1635, and she was a direct descendant of three men who sailed on the Mayflower. Both Joseph and Elizabeth’s roots ran deep in New England. They began their family right away and were the parents of four children.

It’s unclear exactly when Joseph became involved in the shipping business, but he is recorded as being at sea as early as 1767. Newspaper announcements and advertisements from Massachusetts to Philadelphia gave accounts of his coming and goings throughout the 1770s.  These reports referred to him as Captain Joseph Anthony.  One of his ships, the Peace and Plenty, was reported a number of times and seems to have been one of his most sailed ships.  An article from May 1775 in the Philadelphia newspaper, “Dunlap and Claypoole’s American Daily Advertiser,” where Captain Anthony, who had just arrived from Rhode Island, related the position and number of British troops at sea, as well as stories of General Gage and the battle that had occurred as recently on April 19^th at Lexington and Concord. It was around this same time that Joseph Anthony was elected to the Committee of Safety in his home port of Newport.  His patriotism was evident.

His shipping business flourished, but as he began to age, the call of the sea must have been less enchanting than it was in his youth. At some point before 1782, he moved his family to Philadelphia. He partnered with Josiah Hewes, whose brother Joseph Hewes was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, where they opened, “the Stores on the north side of Chesnut Street wharff, where they have for SALE, lately imported” silks, green teas, nutmegs, West-India Rum, French Brandy, Spermaceti Candles, among other upscale wares.  Another advertisement in 1784, listed Malaga wine, German steel, English sail cloth, Maryland tobacco, New England rum, and superfine boulting cloths. The company of Hewes and Anthony thrived.

In 1781, the Bank of North America was chartered by the Continental Congress. It was a failure, but the idea of a national banking system remained.  Alexander Hamilton led the argument for a national bank citing it would improve the nation’s credit. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison both felt it was unconstitutional. On 25 February 1791, legislation was proposed and passed to charter a new bank for one term of twenty years.  The law read as follows:

“Whereas it is conceived that the establishment of a bank for the United States, upon a foundation sufficiently extensive to answer the purposes intended thereby, and at the same time upon the principles which afford adequate security or an upright and prudent administration therefore, will be very conducive to the successful conducting of the national finances; will tend to give facility to the obtaining of loans, for the use of government, in sudden emergencies; and will be productive of considerable advantaged to trade and industry in general:

Therefore,

Section 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representative of the United States of America in the Congress assembled, That a Bank of the United States shall be established;...

President Washington then appointed Thomas Willing, David Rittenhouse, and Samuel Howell as the commissioners.  Published in the Gazette of the United States, on 26 October 1791, was the following notice: “We the Subscribers, this day appointed by the Stockholders of the Bank of the United States, to preside at the election of twenty-five Directors for the said Bank, do hereby certify, that the following Gentlemen were duly elected, agreeably to the number of votes annexed to their respective names.”  The first ten names all received 2,936 votes - Joseph Anthony was among them.  The bank was located in Philadelphia with branches eventually opened in Boston, New York, Charleston, Baltimore, Norfolk, Savannah, Washington, DC., and New Orleans. At the end of the original twenty-year charter, a vote to renew failed, but in just a few years, by 1816, another bank was chartered which became the Second Bank of the United States.

Joseph Anthony died on 28 September 1798, in Philadelphia. His mortuary notice published in the Pennsylvania Gazette read, “Died, this morning, Joseph Anthony, Esq. merchant. A citizen, eminent for his private virtues, and a staunch federalist.”  A sale of his property was reported in the Gazette of the United States on 1 February 1799, which noted, “An elegant three story brick house, situated at the north-east corner of Ninth and High streets, twenty eight feet front, with three story brick building, extending on Ninth street, two hundred feet to a 26 feet wide court, on which is erected a brick stable and coach house, the whole finished in the best manner. Also three twenty-five feet Lots bounded by Filbert and Ninth Street extending bank from Filbert Street seventy-five feet to the 26 feet Court before mentioned with the privilege of the said Court. Also a Lot with the Buildings thereon erected consisting of a New Four Story Brick Building on the east end and a two Story Brick Building on the west and situation in Water Street between Chesnut and Market containing in breadth Twenty-three feet and extending Eastward into the River Delaware Two Hundred and fifty feet bounded eastward by the River Delaware Southward by James Pemberton, Westward by water Street and Northward by Mary fox’s Estate with a reservation of a Cart way across the east end of said lot.”   There is no question he was immensely well-to-do.

Joseph Anthony led three lives – as a shipping magnate; a merchant; and a banker. Regardless of what endeavor he began, he succeeded at it.  He was prosperous at a time when the future was uncertain. The Revolutionary war loomed; and again, he succeeded in his support of the United States.  I am extremely proud to have been the first to prove his part in the Revolutionary War as a Patriot, but I am no more or less proud of him than any of the others of the Revolutionary Patriots from whom I descend.