Israel Thorndike

American investor, merchant, privateer, and politician

• Born: 1755
• Birthplace: Beverly, Massachusetts
• Died: 1832
• Place of death: Boston, Massachusetts

Thorndike became a wealthy man through his investments in the maritime trade, the evolving textile industry, and transportation. He owned and commanded ships during the Revolutionary War and made his fortune trading with the West Indies and later the East Indies and China.

Sources of wealth: Trade; privateering; investments; real estate

Bequeathal of wealth: Children; educational institution; medical institution

Early Life

Israel Thorndike (IHS-ree-ehl THOHRN-dik) was the youngest of four children born to Andrew Thorndike, a farmer, and Anna Morgan Thorndike, a homemaker. When Israel was six, his father was lost at sea. Four years later, Andrew Thorndike was declared legally dead, and the bulk of his estate went to his eldest son, Joseph; Israel received £1 and 4 shillings. Israel was educated in the local public schools and apprenticed to a cooper, but he had greater ambition and was interested in both farming and the sea.

First Ventures

By the time he was seventeen, Thorndike was the proprietor of a shipping business, owning six fishing vessels and a three-eighths interest in a seventh; these fishing vessels were valued at £900. He also owned two small craft, valued at £600. In addition to being a ship owner, in 1772 he became a partner with Moses Brown of Waltham, Massachusetts, in a mercantile business, selling broadcloths, velvets, dress goods, and fishermen’s supplies. On October 9, 1777, Thorndike married Elizabeth Trask, Brown’s sister-in-law; they would have two children.

The outbreak of the Revolutionary War created another opportunity for Thorndike. The colonies lacked a navy, and in the fall of 1775, state governments began licensing privateers. These ships were to seize British merchant vessels that would then be sold at auction, with the proceeds to be distributed among the rebel ship owners and crews.

The Massachusetts legislature created a state navy, and Thorndike was commissioned as an officer, serving actively on various privateers. His first command in October, 1776, was the schooner Warren, a fifty-ton ship carrying sixteen guns. He also served on the Tyrannicide and the Scorpion. Throughout the Revolutionary War, he was the owner or part owner of several privateering ships. In 1779, he and Brown were among the owners of the Black Prince, carrying eighteen guns and 130 men, and the smaller Defense. Both ships were lost in a failed expedition against the newly established British base at Penobscot, Maine. In 1780, Thorndike went to sea again as master of the Resource, a ship with sixteen guns and a crew of thirty of which he was also a part owner. Thorndike was also involved in outfitting the Scourge, a ship with twenty guns and a crew of 120. His final venture in privateering during the Revolutionary War was on the Shaker. Unlike many ship owners, Thorndike and his partners did not lose a fortune, nor did they make one.

On October 20, 1783, Thorndike’s wife died. He remarried a year later, and he and his second wife, Anna Dodge, had twelve children. Anna inherited more than $45,000 when her father, merchant George Dodge, died. A third wife, Sarah Dana, outlived Thorndike.

Mature Wealth

Thorndike realized that America’s independence from Great Britain would affect the shipping business, and he embarked on new investments. In 1787, he and a group of Essex County businessmen invested in a toll bridge between Beverly and Salem, Massachusetts. As a prominent businessman, Thorndike was selected as a delegate to the Massachusetts constitutional convention. Thorndike was a Federalist, favoring a strong central government as beneficial to order and economic stability. The citizens of Beverly elected him to the lower house of the Massachusetts state legislature in 1788. A conservative politician, Thorndike was interested in legislation affecting business, and he was elected to the state legislature thirteen times.

Thorndike was part of a group of businessmen who incorporated the Beverly Cotton Manufacturing Company in February, 1789. This company was the earliest attempt to establish the textile industry in the United States; however, the enterprise was not successful. Thorndike was also involved in foreign trade, fishing, and coastal shipping. By 1789, he and Brown owned a fleet of sixty-seventy-ton schooners and a 243-ton ship, the Fabens. Thorndike’s ships sailed regularly between Beverly and the West Indies, carrying provisions and consumer goods to the planters and their slave laborers; his fleet returned with sugar, molasses, rum, and coffee. Thorndike made a significant part of his fortune from the West Indies trade. In 1792, he had become wealthy enough to purchase a fine home and several parcels of land in Beverly. By 1795, Thorndike’s fleet and other ships in which he had an interest were sailing to ports around the world. At the end of the century, Thorndike become increasingly involved in the East Indies and China trade.

His business was so successful that Thorndike needed more space in his warehouses and office in Beverly. In 1804, he purchased property on India Wharf in Boston for his business interests. Thorndike relocated his family from Beverly to Boston in 1810, but he maintained a summer home in Beverly. His home in Boston became a center of political activity. Thorndike and fellow Federalists became involved in the Essex Junta, a group advocating secession for New England during the War of 1812. Although Thorndike was against the war, he went back to sea, and as captain of the Hyder Ally, he captured a valuable British ship after rounding the Cape of Good Hope.

Thorndike continued to invest in various industries. He was part of a group that in 1813 invested in the Boston Manufacturing Company, a textile manufacturing firm in Waltham. The company’s first mill, equipped with an innovative power loom, was built on the Charles River. Thorndike’s share of the company was $40,000. He invested additional funds in this successful firm in 1816 and 1820. His interest in the manufacturing of textiles led to investments in other textile firms, including the Taunton Manufacturing Company, the Hamilton Company, and the Appleton and Lowell Companies.

According to one contemporary account, Thorndike invested a “greater amount of capital” than any other New Englander, including investments in insurance and in real estate. He was involved in land purchases in Ohio and Maine. He was an original proprietor of the Massachusetts Bay Canal, a forerunner of the present Cape Cod Canal; he was a stockholder of the Massachusetts Railroad Corporation and the Boston and Taunton Railroad; and he owned property around the Boston wharf and other parcels of land in Boston. However diversified his interests, Thorndike continued his involvement in shipping until his death.

Although Thorndike did not attend Harvard College, he donated $500 to the fund creating the Massachusetts Professorship of Natural History and contributed another $500 toward construction of the library at the Harvard Theological School. His most important gift was procuring the library of Professor Christoph Daniel Ebeling of Hamburg, Germany. After a series of negotiations, Thorndike purchased the library in 1818 for $6,500 and donated it to Harvard. This library of more than four thousand volumes contains numerous works of American history, as well as maps and charts of the United States.

Thorndike died in Boston on May 10, 1832, and was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery in nearby Cambridge. His estate exceeded $1.5 million.

Legacy

Although he began his life in poverty, Israel Thorndike’s hard work and business acumen made him a millionaire. His involvement with trade and manufacturing and his associations with like-minded individuals, both in business and in politics, resulted in his economic and social prominence within the Boston community. He was one of the first New England merchants to make a fortune in the China trade. He also participated in state politics as an elected member of the Massachusetts legislature. Thorndike had little formal education, but he supported Harvard College with generous gifts. He also contributed $2,000 to the newly established Massachusetts General Hospital and was instrumental in raising funds for the Boston Athenaeum.

Bibliography

Banner, James M., Jr. To the Hartford Convention: The Federalists and the Origins of Party Politics in Massachusetts, 1789-1815. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970. Discusses Thorndike as a Federalist and his involvement in the Hartford Convention.

Dalzell, Robert F., Jr. Enterprising Elite: The Boston Associates and the World They Made. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987. Thorndike’s investment in the Boston Company is discussed, as well as his contributions to charity, including his donations to Harvard.

Forbes, J. D. Israel Thorndike, Federalist Financier. New York: Exposition Press, 1953. The only published biography of Thorndike includes information on his personal life and business activities.

Hall, Peter Dobkin. “What the Merchants Did with Their Money: Charitable and Testamentary Trusts in Massachusetts, 1780-1880.” In Entrepreneur: The Boston Business Community, 1700-1850, edited by Conrad Edick Wright and Katheryn P. Viens. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1997. Discusses the trust Thorndike set up for his heirs.

Hall, Stephen. “Monroe’s Presidential Visit Enthralled City in 1817.” Chronicle: Membership Newsletter of the Beverly Historical Society & Museum. Fall, 2006. In addition to discussing President James Monroe’s breakfast with Thorndike, this article provides a portrait and information about Thorndike.