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COLLECTION Identifier: Mss:766 1759-1762 R878

John Rowe letter book

Scope and Contents

The collection consists of a letterbook containing transcriptions of outgoing letters, dated 1759 to 1762, written by Boston merchant John Rowe to other merchants, ship captains, and business partners. The letters concern John Rowe’s trading activities with Canada, England, Ireland, and the West Indies for goods like spermaceti, tar, turpentine, sugar, rum, staves, tea, coal, and tobacco,. He also imported cloth, hemp, and Russian duck, used to construct tents supplied to English troops in Quebec.

Rowe addressed matters like insurance, advice for shipmasters regarding captured vessels, and settlement of accounts and debts with fellow merchants, including Thomas Hancock (1703-1764). Other frequent topics were the impact of the Seven Years' War and French and Indian War on shipping and commerce, the progress of the conflicts in Canada and Europe, such as the British victory in the Battle of Quebec in 1759, and the Boston fire of 1760. Correspondents include Boston lawyer James Otis (1725-1783), New York merchant Philip Cuylers and David Van Horne, the London firm of Lane & Booth, Peter Hubbert, Captain Robert Jarvis, New Bedford whalers William Rotch and Joseph Rotch (1704-1784), and Ralph Burton (-1768), lieutenant-governor of Quebec. There are several personal letters to his siblings, some regarding settlement of their parents' estate.

In a June 16, 1761 letter to Joseph Woodmass, John Rowe expressed regret at missing an opportunity to purchase an enslaved person (page 282 at Sequence 295.) The letterbook does not appear to contain further evidence of Rowe’s possible involvement in the slave trade.

There is also a letter dated October 1897 describing the circumstances under which the letter book was found in an attic in 1873, and a 20th century typewritten index of the names of correspondents.

Dates

  • Creation: 1759-1762

Creator

Conditions Governing Access

Collection is open for research. Materials stored onsite. Please contact specialcollectionsref@hbs.edu for more information regarding access procedures.

Extent

.25 linear feet (1 box)

Biographical / Historical

John Rowe (1715-1787) was a Boston merchant and trader active in the mid to late eighteenth century. Rowe also served as a Boston selectman. Rowe was born in Essex, England, and emigrated to Boston at a young age. In 1743, Rowe married Hannah Speakman, whose sister Susannah was married to Ralph Inman, another wealthy Boston merchant. Rowe owned the Boston property now called Rowe's Wharf, in addition to a number of ships that voyaged to Canada, Europe, and the West Indies. Rowe was the owner of the ship Eleanor, one of three vessels that arrived in Boston carrying tea owned by East India Company in late 1773. The tea aboard the Eleanor was destroyed as part of the events of the Boston Tea Party on December 16, 1773. Rowe’s partners in business included his brother-in-law, Ralph Inman, and the London-based firm Lane & Booth.

There is some evidence that John Rowe participated in the slave trade. Rowe placed a notice in the July 28, 1746 edition of the Boston Evening Post in which he advertised his interest in purchasing enslaved people who were trained as carpenters and his willingness to pay a high price for them. The full extent of John Rowe’s involvement in the slave trade is unknown.

Physical Location

MANU

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Deposited by Boston Public Library, 1933.

Digitization Funding

Collections and items have been digitized with the generous support of The Polonsky Foundation.

Related Materials

The Massachusetts Historical Society holds a twelve volume collection of John Rowe’s diaries dated 1764 to 1779. Massachusetts Historical Society, 1154 Boylston Street, Boston, MA 02215. Email: library@masshist.org.

General note

The pages of John Rowe letter book were removed from the volume at an unknown date and rehoused in archival folders, maintaining the original order.

Processing Information

To enhance discoverability, this collection was removed from an artificial collection of records of Boston merchants engaged in foreign trade in December 2020.

Remediation note

As of June 2023, staff have reviewed, remediated and enhanced the full description of this collection (including but not limited to the author/creator, title, biographical/history note, scope and content note, arrangement, folder titles, and subject headings) where necessary according to Baker Library’s Guiding Principles for Conscious and Inclusive Description. Superseded versions of the finding aid and catalog record are available in Archive-It, a web archiving tool provided by the Internet Archive. Preserving legacy finding aids and catalog records to provide transparency to researchers about how the description has evolved. Please contact Baker Library staff at specialcollectionsref@hbs.edu with any feedback.

Creator

Author
Baker Library
Description rules
dacs
Language of description
eng
EAD ID
bak01286

Repository Details

Part of the Baker Library Special Collections and Archives, Harvard Business School Repository

Baker Library Special Collections and Archives holds unique resources that focus on the evolution of business and industry, as well as the records of the Harvard Business School, documenting the institution's development over the last century. These rich and varied collections support research in a diverse range of fields such as business, economic, social and cultural history as well as the history of science and technology.

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