William Shepard Wetmore (January 26, 1801 – June 16, 1862) was an
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
businessman
A businessperson, businessman, or businesswoman is an individual who has founded, owns, or holds shares in (including as an angel investor) a private-sector company. A businessperson undertakes activities (commercial or industrial) for the ...
and
philanthropist who was an
Old China Trade
The Old China Trade () refers to the early commerce between the Qing Empire and the United States under the Canton System, spanning from shortly after the end of the American Revolutionary War in 1783 to the Treaty of Wanghia in 1844. The Old ...
merchant.
Early life
He was born on January 26, 1801, to Nancy Shepard and Seth Wetmore in
St. Albans, Vermont. He was a sixth-generation descendant of Thomas Whitmore, who immigrated to Boston in 1635 from the west coast of England and became one of the earliest settlers of the
Connecticut Colony.
[A Study of Chateau sur Mer Report II: Rites of Passage: The Wetmores of Chateau sur Mer] His mother died on February 2, 1802.
He had two stepbrothers Charles Wright Wetmore and Seth Downing Wetmore and one stepsister Nancy Shepard Wetmore. William moved to Connecticut with his aunt and uncle
and was educated at
Cheshire Academy
Cheshire Academy is a selective, co-educational college preparatory school located in Cheshire, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1794 as the Episcopal Academy of Connecticut, it is currently the eleventh oldest boarding school in the United ...
in
Cheshire, Connecticut
Cheshire ( ), formerly known as New Cheshire Parish, is a town in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States. At the time of the 2020 census, the population of Cheshire was 28,733. The center of population of Connecticut is located in Cheshir ...
.
[The Outbuildings and Grounds of Chateau-sur-Mer Paul L. Veeder, II ''The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians'', Vol. 29, No. 4 (Dec. 1970), pp. 307-317 ]
Career
William was mentored by an uncle,
Samuel Wetmore, who was in a mercantile partnership with another uncle, Chauncy Whittlesey, in
Middletown, Connecticut. In 1815 Samuel and his brother
William Willard Wetmore moved to
Providence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts ...
, entering into a business partnership with the merchants
Edward Carrington & Company. When William was fourteen years of age, he was hired aboard the ship ''Fame'', bound for England, South America,
and the East Indies. In 1823, a trip on the ''Lion'' stranded him in
Valparaíso, Chile. He took employment in Chile with the firm
Richard Alsop
Richard Alsop (January 23, 1761 – August 20, 1815) was an American author from the Alsop family of Middletown, Connecticut.
Richard Alsop was born January 23, 1761. His father (1727–1776) and son were also named Richard Alsop, which has led t ...
of
Middletown, Connecticut. This eventually led to a partnership of Alsop, Wetmore and Cryder in 1825 with
John Cryder of Philadelphia. In 1829, he retired from the firm.
China Trade
Due to impaired health William's physician advised a career move to China.
In 1833, he traveled to
Canton, China
Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong Kong ...
and took over a partnership in Dunn & Company. He formed close ties with a junior partner
Joseph Archer.
He went on to establish a new merchant house, Wetmore & Company, with
Joseph Archer. Wetmore's profit and loss ledgers from 1834–1839 reveal that the primary goods brokered by Wetmore & Co. were tea, tea papers, silks and spices. Lesser cargoes were wines, ports, opium, hemp, pearl buttons, copper and coffee. They also transported a variety of foreign currencies, and delivered Sunday newspapers. "Fast boats" were commonly employed for personal passages and letters.
The company went on to be one of the largest mercantile houses in the East Indies despite the fact that Wetmore was opposed to the opium trade.
[Rhode Island Historical Society, The George Peabody Wetmore Papers, Mss 798, Boxes 22 & 23,WSW Biography prepared by Church of the Ascension, NYC] During his time in the Far East, Wetmore collected a variety of Chinese objects, porcelains and china, which he imported home.
It was in 1835 that the Maryland merchant
George Peabody
George Peabody ( ; February 18, 1795 – November 4, 1869) was an American financier and philanthropist. He is widely regarded as the father of modern philanthropy.
Born into a poor family in Massachusetts, Peabody went into business in dry g ...
sailed to London on a mission to defer a United States banking crisis when states had begun skipping interest payments on bonds marketed in London. Peabody eventually enjoyed a huge success as a merchant banker in London and as a self-appointed American ambassador of the mercantile industry. He developed a form of wholesale banking known as merchant banks and became a leading dealer of American state bonds in London. It was through family and business connections that William S. Wetmore began a lifelong friendship with the prominent financier Peabody.
Later life
In 1844, he revisited his partnership with Cryder and formed the house of Wetmore and Cryder in New York City. He retired from the firm in 1847. According to Barrett in The Old Merchants of New York City, besides his success in the merchant trade, Wetmore acquired vast land holdings of 10,000 acres (40 km
2) in Ohio and 70,000 acres (280 km
2) in Tennessee and his net worth at retirement was valued over one million dollars. Wetmore later left New York City and retired to
Newport, Rhode Island
Newport is an American seaside city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island. It is located in Narragansett Bay, approximately southeast of Providence, south of Fall River, Massachusetts, south of Boston, and northeast of New Yor ...
, where he bought of land.
Personal life
On October 24, 1837, William married his cousin,
Esther Phillips Wetmore
Esther is the eponymous heroine of the Book of Esther. In the Achaemenid Empire, the Persian king Ahasuerus seeks a new wife after his queen, Vashti, is deposed for disobeying him. Hadassah, a Jews, Jewess who goes by the name of Esther, is ch ...
of
Middletown, Connecticut, at
Gloucester Lodge,
Regent's Park
Regent's Park (officially The Regent's Park) is one of the Royal Parks of London. It occupies of high ground in north-west Inner London, administratively split between the City of Westminster and the Borough of Camden (and historically betwee ...
, London. She was the daughter of his uncle
Samuel Wetmore and a sister of
Mary Cryder.
The following year, a daughter was born in New York City, who died at birth or soon thereafter on October 12, 1838. Esther died on October 26, 1838.
After her death, he married 21-year-old Anstiss Derby Rogers in
Salem, Massachusetts
Salem ( ) is a historic coastal city in Essex County, Massachusetts, located on the North Shore of Greater Boston. Continuous settlement by Europeans began in 1626 with English colonists. Salem would become one of the most significant seaports tr ...
, on September 5, 1843, daughter of
John Wittingham Rogers. They had three children:
* William Shepard Wetmore Jr. (1844–1858), who died of
scarlet fever in June 1858.
[A Study of Chateau sur Mer Report I - The Wetmore Family and their Domestics]
*
George Peabody Wetmore
George Peabody Wetmore (August 2, 1846September 11, 1921) was an American politician who was the 37th Governor of, and a Senator from, Rhode Island.
Early life
George Peabody Wetmore was born in London, England, during a visit of his parents ...
(1846–1921), later the
Governor of Rhode Island
The governor of Rhode Island is the head of government of the U.S. state of Rhode Island and serves as commander-in-chief of the state's Army National Guard and Air National Guard. The current governor is Democrat Dan McKee. In their capac ...
and a U.S. Senator.
* Annie Derby Rogers Wetmore (1848–1884), who married
William Watts Sherman
William Watts Sherman (August 4, 1842 – January 22, 1912) was a New York City businessman and the treasurer of the Newport Casino. In 1875–1876 he had the William Watts Sherman House constructed in Newport, Rhode Island.
Early life
...
on July 7, 1871.
In Newport, he built
Chateau-sur-Mer
Chateau-sur-Mer is one of the first grand Bellevue Avenue mansions of the Gilded Age in Newport, Rhode Island. Located at 474 Bellevue Avenue, it is now owned by the Preservation Society of Newport County and is open to the public as a museum. ...
, one of the first of the grand Bellevue Avenue
mansions
A mansion is a large dwelling house. The word itself derives through Old French from the Latin word ''mansio'' "dwelling", an abstract noun derived from the verb ''manere'' "to dwell". The English word ''manse'' originally defined a property la ...
of the
Gilded Age
In United States history, the Gilded Age was an era extending roughly from 1877 to 1900, which was sandwiched between the Reconstruction era and the Progressive Era. It was a time of rapid economic growth, especially in the Northern and Wes ...
in Newport, Rhode Island. It is now open to the public as a museum.
He furnished it with "strange and interesting" Chinese lacquer furniture and porcelain. In 1860 he added a massive stone moon gate on the grounds from designs brought back from China.
[The Outbuildings and Grounds of Chateau-sur-Mer Paul L. Veeder, II ''The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 29, No. 4 (Dec. 1970), p. 311, Fig. 5]
However, there is no mention of his wife, Anstiss, in a series of letters written between Annie, George, and their father, corresponding between Newport and New York City during the years 1856–1860. It is believed she lived at the Merlano Cottage in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts.
According to the 1860 and 1865 census, Mrs. Wetmore is not residing at Chateau-sur-Mer. Servants living at the house in the 1860 census were a butler, cook, laundress and chambermaid. Another resident in the 1860 census at Chateau-sur-Mer was a Wetmore cousin, twenty-year-old Lucy Dennison.
[A Study of Chateau sur Mer Report I - The Wetmore Family and their Domestics Page 11]
William S. Wetmore conducted an active community life in Newport as a founder and incorporator of the
Newport Historical Society
The Newport Historical Society is a historical society in Newport, Rhode Island that was chartered in 1854 to collect and preserve books, manuscripts, and objects pertaining to Newport's history.
History of the society
Although the society ...
in 1854, as the first and continuing chairman of the
Newport Reading Room
The Newport Reading Room (also known as The Reading Room), founded in 1854, is a gentlemen's club located on Bellevue Avenue in Newport, Rhode Island, USA. Its primary building features an actual book reading room. The Spouting Rock Beach Associ ...
, 1854–1861, and as a Director of the
Redwood Library from 1856 to 1862. Wetmore was one of sixteen Newporters who joined to contribute $16,500.00 to Touro Park. He was also elected Vice President of the innovative
Butler Hospital
Butler Hospital is a private, non-profit, psychiatric and substance abuse hospital for adolescents, adults, and seniors, located at 345 Blackstone Boulevard in Providence, Rhode Island. The hospital is affiliated with the Warren Alpert Medical Sch ...
for the insane in 1858, which initiated reform of treatment for the poor and insane.
Upon William Wetmore's death on June 16, 1862, sixteen-year-old George and fourteen-year-old
Annie were master and mistress of Chateau-sur-Mer.
References
External links
A Study of Chateau sur Mer Report I: The Wetmore Family and Their DomesticsA Study of Chateau sur Mer Report II: Rites of Passage: The Wetmores of Chateau sur Mer*
ttp://americanart.si.edu/search/search_artworks1.cfm?StartRow=6&ConID=3864&format=long Anstiss Derby Rogers Wetmore modeled 1846 by Hiram PowersWilliam Shepard Wetmore Papers at Baker Library Historical Collections, Harvard Business School
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wetmore, William Shepard
1801 births
1862 deaths
Burials at Green-Wood Cemetery
People from Franklin County, Vermont
Businesspeople from Newport, Rhode Island
American expatriates in Chile
American expatriates in China
Cheshire Academy alumni
19th-century American businesspeople