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Sources on US maritime fur traders, firms, families, ships, etc etc.

Some existing Wikipedia pages of note[edit]

The Golden Ghetto: The American Commercial Community at Canton and the Shaping of American China Policy, 1784–1844[edit]

The Golden Ghetto: The American Commercial Community at Canton and the Shaping of American China Policy, 1784–1844.

  • https://books.google.com/books?id=Tw4wBQAAQBAJ
  • Hong Kong University Press, Nov 1, 2014
  • "...The book devotes particular attention to the biographical details of the principal American traders, the leading American firms, and their operations in Canton and the United States."
  • Chapter 4: The Dominant Firms

p. 143: "In 1789 four ships belonging to Elias Hasket Derby, the great Salem merchant, found their way to the anchorage at Whampoa..."

p. 147: "Samuel Snow, a Rhode Islander who became the second American consul in China, arrived [in Canton] in 1798 on the Browns' Ann and Hope (Captain Benjamin Page), of Providence. ...Another resident [of Canton]...was young Sullivan Dorr, who arrived in 1799 to handle the Canton end of his Massachusetts family's fur trade from the Northwest Coast of America. His crafty father, Ebenezer, a Roxbury tanner turned mariner, was one of the earliest American merchants to enter the profitable commerce in peltries..."

p. 150: "Perkins & Co.. In the fall of 1789, young Thomas Handasayd Perkins was in Canton as supercargo of E.H. Derby's ship Astreae, Captain James Magee. Captain Robert Gray of the Columbia arrived in November fresh from the Northwest Coast. From Joseph Ingraham, first mate of the latter vessel, Perkins learned what John Ledyard had been trying to tell American merchants for several years past—that a trade in furs [could be profitable]...The following year, Perkins, Captain Magee, and Russell Sturgis (Sr.) sent Ingraham back to the Northwest Coast in their newly acquired ship, Hope, on a fur voyage. In 1792, with his elder brother, Perkins formed James & Thomas H. Perkins,..." [much much more]

p. 155: "...two representative Boston firms, J. & T.H. Perkins and Bryant & Sturgis, were sometimes collectively called "the Boston Concern" or "the PCBS concern", at Canton, so closely did they cooperate. Central to this informal alliance were the Perkins, Sturgis, and Forbes families..."

p. 156: "...Thus in 1818 Perkins & Co. announced that it was abandoning all commission business to the new firm of J.P. Sturgis & Co. Sturgis had arrived [in Canton] in 1809 aboard the Atahualpa, captained by his colorful uncle, William Sturgis... ...[Cushing announced] the formation of James P. Sturgis & Co., with three brothers, James P. Henry, and George W. Sturgis as partners... [much much more]"

p. 364-: "Appendix 4: Known Partners of American Firms at Canton, 1803-44. [list incomplete]

  • Perkins & Co. (originally Ephraim Bumstead & Co.):
      • James and Thomas H. Perkins (Boston partners, 1803-)
      • Ephraim Bumstead (1803-5 died)
      • John P. Cushing (1803-30)
      • Thomas T. Forbes (1827-29 died)
    • [absorbed by Russell & Co., 1830]
  • James P. Sturgis & Co.:
      • James P. Sturgis (1818-ca. 1830)
      • George W. Sturgis (1818-26 died)
      • Henry Sturgis (1818-19 died)
  • Pitman & French:
      • Timothy G. Pitman (ca. 1821-32 died)
      • William French (ca. 1821-32)
      • Daniel T. Aborn (1826-31)
  • Samuel Russell & Co.:
      • Samuel Russell (1819-23)
      • Philip Ammidon (1819-23)
  • [absorbed by Russell & Co.]
  • Russell & Co.:
      • Samuel Russell (1823-36)
      • Philip Ammidon (1824-30)
      • William H. Low (1830-33 died)
      • Augustine Heard (1831-36)
      • John C. Green (1834-39)
      • John M. Forbes (1834-38)
      • Joseph Coolidge (1834-39)
      • A.A. Low (1837-39)

[page skipped; much more, some highlights:]

  • Olyphant & Co.
      • David W.C. Olyphant (ca. 1827-39)
      • etc
  • Gordon & Talbot:
      • Oliver H. Gordon (1836-40)
      • William R. Talbot (1836-40)
  • [dissolved at Canton in 1840; continued in New York City]
  • Benjamin C. Wilcocks: (ca. 1804-8; 1812-27)
      • John R. Latimer (1824-34)
  • Augustine Heard & Co.
  • The Blight Family
  • Nye, Parkin & Co. ("Nipperkin")

p. 367-: Appendix 5: Commerial Family Alliances... [tons of details]

Memoir of Thomas Handasyd Perkins: Containing Extracts from His Diaries and Letters[edit]

  • See, eg, p. 295: Letters to/from Perkins & Co. regarding sea-otter trade details.
  • Contents titles include: Voyage to Canton in 1789; Trade of the North-west Coast of America and in China;


Genealogical and Personal Memoirs Relating to the Families of the State of Massachusetts, Volume 4[edit]

Merchant Prince of Boston: Colonel T.H. Perkins, 1764-1854[edit]

  • p. 433:

The Perkins Firms

Perkins, Burling & Perkins, May i, 1786-August 15, 1788, Cape Francis. Partners:

James Perkins, Walter Burling, and T. H. Perkins. Perkins, Burling & Co., August 15, 1788-June 21, 1793, Cape Francis. Partners:

James Perkins, Walter Burling, Samuel G. Perkins. T. H. Perkins & James Magee, August 15, 1788-n.d. Boston. Partners: T. H. Perkins

and James Magee. James and Thomas H. Perkins, September 29, 1792-August 1, 1822, Boston.

Partners: James and T. H. Perkins. E. Bumstead & Co., July 15, 1803-December 5, 1805 (?), Canton, China. Partners:

Ephraim Bumstead, 25 percent, J. & T. H. Perkins, 75 percent. Perkins & Co. (first establishment), December 6, 1805-August 1, 1822, Canton,

China. Partners : James Perkins, Thomas H. Perkins, John P. Cushing. S. Cabot Jr., J. & T. H. Perkins, Jrs., January 1, 1817-January 1821(F), Boston.

Partners: Samuel Cabot, James Perkins, Jr., T. H. Perkins, Jr. J. & T. H. Perkins & Sons (first establishment), January 1821-February 20, 1823,

Boston. Partners: James Perkins, T. H. Perkins, Samuel Cabot, James Per- kins, Jr., T. H. Perkins, Jr. J. & T. H. Perkins & Sons (second establishment), February 20, 1823-June 22,

1828, Boston. Partners: T. H. Perkins, Sr., and Jr., Samuel Cabot, James

Perkins, Jr. Perkins & Co. (second establishment), February 20, 1823-June 22, 1828, Canton,

China. Partners: James Perkins, Jr., T. H. Perkins, John P. Cushing. J. & T. H. Perkins & Sons (third establishment), June 22, 1828-ca. November

1835, Boston. Partners: Samuel Cabot, Thomas G. Cary, T. H. Perkins. Perkins & Co. (third establishment), June 22, 1828-ca. November 1835, Boston.

Partners: T. H. Perkins, John P. Cushing, Samuel Cabot.


Lives of American Merchants, Volume 1[edit]

Further reading[edit]

  • Christman, Margaret C. S. (1984). Adventurous Pursuits: Americans and the China Trade, 1784–1844. Washington, D.C.: Published for the National Portrait Gallery by the Smithsonian Institution Press.
  • Dolin, Eric Jay (2012). When America First Met China: An Exotic History of Tea, Drugs, and Money in the Age of Sail. Liveright Publishing Corporation. ISBN 978-0-87140-433-6.
  • Downs Jacques M. (1997). The Golden Ghetto: The American Commercial Community at Canton and the Shaping of American China policy, 1784–1844. Bethlehem, Penn.: Lehigh University Press. ISBN 0934223351.
  • Dulles, Foster Rhea (1930). The Old China Trade. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
  • Fichter, James R. (2010). So Great a Profit: How the East India Trade Transformed American Capitalism. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-05057-0.
  • Goldstein, Jonathan (1978). Philadelphia and the China Trade, 1682–1846: Commercial, Cultural, and Attitudinal Effects. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania State University Press.
  • Haddad, John R. America's First Adventure in China: Trade, Treaties, Opium, and Salvation (2013) online
  • Haddad, John Rogers (2008). The romance of China: excursions to China in U.S. culture, 1776–1876. New York: Columbia University Press.
  • Johnson, Kendall (2017). The New Middle Kingdom: China and the Early American Romance of Free Trade. Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 9781421422510.
  • Lee, Jean Gordon (1984). Philadelphians and the China Trade, 1784–1844. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art.
  • Morris, Richard J. "Redefining the economic elite in Salem, Massachusetts, 1759-1799: A tale of evolution, not revolution." New England Quarterly 73.4 (2000): 603-624. online
  • Richards, Rhys (1994), "United States trade with China, 1784-1814," The American Neptune, special supplement to Vol 54. ISSN 0003-0155
  • Shaw, Samuel (1847). Josiah Quincy (ed.). The Journals of Major Samuel Shaw, the First American Consul at Canton. Boston: Crosby & Nichols. Various reprints.
  • Smith, Philip Chadwick Foster (1984). The Empress of China. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Maritime Museum. ISBN 091334608X.


References[edit]