Thomas Hancock (merchant)

Thomas Hancock (July 17, 1703 – August 1, 1764) was a merchant in colonial Boston. Born to Reverend John Hancock and Elizabeth (Clark), he got his start in the book trade and expanded into importing and exporting throughout the Thirteen Colonies. He was also a smuggler, evading the Navigation Acts by trading with the Dutch Republic, which was forbidden. Thanks to lucrative contracts with the Colonial government during King George's War and the Seven Years' War, Hancock became one of Boston's wealthiest men. When his health failed, he passed his business and fortune to his nephew, future Founding Father John Hancock, whom he had raised since John was eight.

A 1730 portrait of Thomas Hancock by John Smibert
Portrait of Hancock by John Singleton Copley
Lydia Henchman Hancock, portrait by John Singleton Copley
Thomas Hancock's home on Beacon Hill in Boston was razed in 1863. This replica of the Hancock House was built in Ticonderoga, New York by the Ticonderoga Historical Society and is open as a museum.

References

Further reading
  • Baxter, William T. The House of Hancock: Business in Boston, 1724–1775. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1945.
  • Fowler, William M., Jr. The Baron of Beacon Hill: A Biography of John Hancock. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980. ISBN 0-395-27619-5.
  • Tyler, John W. Smugglers & Patriots: Boston Merchants and the Advent of the American Revolution. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1986. ISBN 0-930350-76-6.
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