Wetmore collection on Rhode Island commerce
Item
-
Country
-
US
-
Language of name of institution
-
eng
-
Contact information: postal address
-
1154 Boylston Street, Boston, MA 02215-3695
-
Contact information: phone number
-
01 (617) 536-1608 (general)
01 (617) 646-0532 (library staff)
-
Contact information: email
-
reference@masshist.org
-
Reference number
-
P-521
-
Type of reference number
-
Archival reference number
-
Title (official language of the state)
-
Wetmore collection on Rhode Island commerce
-
Language of title
-
eng
-
Creator / accumulator
-
George Peabody Wetmore
-
Date(s)
-
1706/1851
-
Language(s)
-
eng
-
Extent
-
12 microfilm reels
-
Type of material
-
Textual Material
-
Scope and content
-
The Westmore collection on Rhode Island commerce comprises letters, bills of lading, accounts, receipts and shipping records related to Rhode Island merchants and commercial societies from 1706 to 1851. This collection is particularly interesting for researching the 18th-century Sephardic community of Newport, Rhode Island. The most remarkable example is the correspondence of Aaron Lopez, a Portuguese Jewish merchant who settled in Newport in the mid-18th century and became one of the most active businessmen in North Atlantic trade in the period preceding the Revolutionary War. This collection includes copies of several letters addressed to Lopez and even a few written by himself. Since his business network also extended to the Caribbean, it is possible to find documentation related to other Sephardic merchants that were part of Jewish communities in these territories, particularly Jamaica, such as Abraham Lopez or the brothers Isaac and Abraham Pereira Mendes.
Part of the letters in this collection were published in the two-volume Commerce of Rhode Island, published by the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1914-15.
-
Archival history
-
George Peabody Wetmore purchased this collection in 1912.
-
Administrative / Biographical history
-
George Peabody Wetmore was governor of Rhode Island for two terms from 1885 to 1887. He also served three terms as a U.S. Senator from 1894 to 1912. The other great interest of his life was genealogy. In his late 20s, Wetmore started his genealogical work by researching his great-grandfather General William Shepard. His research expanded to include all the lines in his family and many in his wife's family. Wetmore traced his ancestry back to English forebears in the 1600s.
Wetmore's ancestors settled in upper New York State and Massachusetts. His father, William S. Wetmore, was a successful businessman in the China trade and built, in 1851, a summer residence in Newport, Rhode Island, which he called Chateau-Sur-Mer. The Wetmore family divided their time between New York City and Newport.
-
(source: Eberhart, Karen. 2001. Wetmore-Sherman Family Papers. Rhode Island Historical Society. Manuscripts Division)
-
Author of the description
-
Carla Vieira, 2022
