John Palfrey (1768 - 1843)

Born 15 Oct 1768 in Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts Bay

Ancestors

Descendants

Died 19 Oct 1843 at age 75 in Saint Martinville, St. Martin, Louisiana, United States

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Biography

John Palfrey (1768-1843) was born in Boston, the son of merchant William Palfrey. He moved to New Orleans in 1803 after pursuing several business ventures in Boston and South America. Initially employed as a ship chandler, Palfrey later managed his brother-in-law's plantation near New Orleans. He assumed control of this plantation in 1809, but bankruptcy forced him to sell in 1810. Palfrey settled on Bayou l'Albaye near St. Martinville. Four of his five sons eventually settled in Louisiana: Edward and Henry William in 1810; George and William Taylor in 1815. Eldest son John Gorham remained in Boston.

John Gorham Palfrey (1796-1881) graduated from Harvard University in 1815. He studied theology at Harvard, and then accepted the pastorate of Boston's Brattle Street Congregational- Unitarian Church in 1818. He resigned in 1830 to accept the chair of sacred literature at Harvard and remained there through 1839 as dean of faculty and as one of the three preachers at University Chapel.

From 1835 to 1843 he served as editor of the North American Review and early allied himself with the anti-slavery movement. In 1842 he was elected to the Massachusetts legislature and served until 1843. From 1844 to 1848 he was secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and also served in Congress, 1847-1849. He served as Boston's postmaster, 1861-1867, and attended the anti-slavery congress in Paris as an American delegate.

Henry William Palfrey (1798-1866) initially worked for the counting houses of William Simpson and the House of Chew & Relf in New Orleans. In 1820 he set up the merchant and cotton factor firm of Taylor and Palfrey. He served as American Commissioner to the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1855. He died en route to Europe in 1866 when his ship sank in a storm.

William Taylor Palfrey (1800-1868) became a successful planter on Bayou Teche in St. Mary Parish. He also served as a parish judge, sheriff, and as a state senator in 1855. He married Sidney Ann Conrad (1806-1839) in 1825. They had six children. Palfrey remarried in 1858. He and his second wife, Susan Cornelia Gates Barnard (b. ca. 1836), had two children. Edward Palfrey (d. 1816) was employed by the mercantile firm of Smith, Dorsey, & Company in New Orleans. He died in 1816 after contracting yellow fever.

George Palfrey (d. 1824) moved back to Boston in 1816. He died in 1824 of complications after being wounded in a duel.

[Additional information on the Palfrey Family can be found in: Hannah Palfrey Ayer, Legacy of New England; Bernard Broussard, A History of St. Mary Parish; Frank Otto Gattell, John Gorham Palfrey and the New England Conscience; Ulrich B. Phillips, Life and Labor in the Old South; Charles C. Roland, Louisiana Sugar Plantations During the American Civil War; and J. Carlyle Sitterson, Sugar Country.]

When John Palfrey died, his son John Gorham Palfrey *inherited* 20 slaves from his father's plantation in Louisiana which continued to be operated by his brothers Henry, William, Edward and George. Henry helped John Gorham keep the North American Review, the first, oldest and most culturally significant literary magazine in the US, which he bought and was the editor from 1835-1842, financially afloat. By the time of his father's death in 1843, John Gorham was rejecting slave ownership. The Louisiana state legislature denied his request to free his now enslaved people. So in 1844 John Gorham decided to bring them to Massachusetts. He traveled to Lexington, KY; then the Ohio River and boarded a steamboat to LA. He stayed with his now less cordial brother, William, who complained that freeing these 20 enslaved would make the rest of the plantation's enslaved work less motivated to work. John Gorham waited until 1845 to travel with them back to Boston. 17 enslaved ended up moving and having a ceremonial welcome at King's Chapel before being located at placements arranged by abolitionists.

Sources

• PALFREY FAMILY PAPERS Compiled by Randy Penninger, Updated 2008 by Leslie Bourgeois

• Baptiste, Edward E. The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism. Basic Books. New York. 2014. Pages 310-315

Acknowledgments

Thank you to Nancy Vintilla for creating WikiTree profile Palfrey-39 through the import of NAV_AncesTree_2013-09-09.ged on Sep 9, 2013. Click to the Changes page for the details of edits by Nancy and others.