George Perkins (abt. 1754 - 1836)

Born about 1754 in Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts Bay (United States)

Ancestors

Descendants

Died 1836 at about age 82 in Smyrna (izmir) Turkey

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Stephen Bell [send private message]

Biography

Birth

George was born about 1754 in Boston, Massachussets. He was the son of James Perkins and Johanna Mascarene.

Background

George's father had migrated to Massachusetts from Gloucestershire in England about 12 years before George's birth. George was a British loyalist who fled the American Revolution in about 1775/1776, aged 21, to seek his fortune in the Ottoman Empire (Turkey). He settled in Smyrna (Izmir)

Occupation

George became a merchant of the British Empire in the Ottoman Empire and was admitted to the Levant Company on 7th May 1782. (Prior to 1811, British citizenship was not a requirement for admission to the company). In 1787, George was accused of defrauding the Levant Company, by selling goods to a non British buyer. He allegedly loaded 6 bales of shalloons ( a lightweight woolen twill fabric) under his name on the Levant Company ship The Ephrates to be delivered to MJ Frugier & Co, but instead delivered them to a Greek buyer, Pari Venrasi. This caused tensions within the company but did not affect George Perkins' membership of the Levant Company. ^[1]

It seems that along with one or two others, he facilitated the start of American trade in the Ottoman Empire. George's cousins and uncles in Boston, Massachusetts were fur traders, and had been slave traders who later became abolitionists. George became the contact in Smyrna for his cousins Thomas Handasyd Perkins and James Perkins who entered the China trade in the early 19th century. They established Perkins Brothers in Smyrna and Perkins & Co in Canton, China although they remained based in Boston. The Ann was the first American ship seen in the port of Smyrna and the Perkins brothers began trading dried fruit, angora, tea, silk and other commodities between Smyrna and China from about 1789. They expanded to trading in opium in the 1790's, developing a Boston based opium consortium with other wealthy Boston merchants including David Offley and the high society Astor family. Trading in opium was legal in the years leading up to this and at the time that the Perkins brothers entered the market.

In February 1785 The Times listed opium from Smyrna (now Izmir) between oil from Leghorn (Livorno), and peas from Dantzic (Gdansk) in its roundup of goods unloaded at the port of London. ^[2]

Opium was made illegal in China in 1799 but this did not deter the Boston based Perkins brothers and their consortium partners. Opium was still legal in the Ottoman Empire, the American colonies and in Britain and there were enormous profits to be made. Thomas Handasyd Perkins became one of the first millionaires in the United States and his nephew John Perkins Cushing became a multi millionaire in Canton. The Perkins family of Boston funded the arts and donated to the poor from their profits, also establishing the Massachussets General Hospital and a school for the blind.

George's company, was called simply 'George Perkins', and was based only in Smyrna. It was modest compared with the concerns of his cousins but according to various accounts, he had some business dealings with them.

Marriage

In 1786, George married Louise Christina Schnell, the daughter of a Dutch merchant in the Levant. They had 6 children, including 4 daughters and 2 sons. One of their daughters died in early childhood.

Death

George died in Smyrna (Izmir) in March/April 1836, aged 80 and was buried on 3 April 1836 in Smyrna (Izmir).

Sources

1. ↑ https://www.scribd.com/document/105218192/Vlami-Levant-Company-in-Thessaloniki
2. ↑ http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-16681673

• Information added with kind permission of Matteo Giunti from his "Leghorn Merchant Networks Project" - leghornmerchants.wordpress.com/
• http://gw.geneanet.org/marmara2?lang=en&p=george&n=perkins
• UK Foreign and overseas registers - British Chapel in Smyrna - The National Archives of the UK - Kew - Surrey
• Trading with the Ottomans: The Levant Company in the Middle East, Vlami Despina, IB Tauris & Co, London 2015.
• The Role of the American Board in the World, Putney, Clifford & Burlin Paul T, Wipf & Stock publishers, 2012.
• Beacon Hill, Back Bay & the Building of Boston's Golden Age, Clarke Ted, 2010.
• American Travellers on the Nile, early U.S. visitors to Egypt 1774 - 1839, Oliver, Andrew, 2015
• Taking Business to the Tiger's Gate: Thomas Handasyd Perkins and the Boston-Smyrna-Canton Opium Trade of the Early Republic, Michael E. Chapman
• Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch Vol. 52 (2012), pp. 7-28.
• Levant Company in Thessaloniki, Vlami, Despina, uploaded to Scribd by Vasilis Tsitsopoulos 2017.
• https://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/almanac/people/hall-of-fame/detail/thomas-perkins
• http://www.rootedancestry.com/Perkins.pdf, Pg 2 by Austin W. Spencer
• The National Archives of the UK; Kew, Surrey, England; General Register Office: Foreign Registers and Returns; Class: RG 33; Piece: 155 Source Information Ancestry.com. UK, Foreign and Overseas Registers of British Subjects, 1628-1969 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013. Original data: Records of the General Register Office, Government Social Survey Department, and Office of Population Censuses and Surveys. The National Archives, Kew, England. General Register Office: Miscellaneous Foreign Returns. Registrar General (RG) 32.

General Register Office: Foreign Registers and Returns. Registrar General (RG) 33.

• General Register Office: Miscellaneous Foreign Marriage Returns. Registrar General (RG) 34.
• General Register Office: Miscellaneous Foreign Death Returns. Registrar General (RG) 35.
• General Register Office: Registers and Returns of Births, Marriages and Deaths in the Protectorates etc of Africa and Asia. Registrar General (RG) 36.