Jeremiah Wadsworth
Connecticut Businessman
Jeremiah Wadsworth was a descendant of Joseph Wadsworth, one of the founders of Hartford, and his father was a pastor of the town's Center Congregational Church. When only four years old, Wadsworth lost his father and was raised by his uncle, Matthew Tallcott, a Middletown sea captain, merchant, and ship owner. At eighteen he went to sea on one of his uncle's ships, rising to the rank of captain during his ten-year career, and making his fortune in the West India trade, and becoming the wealthiest man in Connecticut by the end of the Revolutionary War.
During the American Revolution, Wadsworth served as Deputy Commissary General of Purchases in 1777. When Congress reorganized the supply system, he became Commissary General in April 1778, resigning in December 1779. Later he was elected a member of the Continental Congress, which ratified the U.S. Constitution in 1788. From 1789 to 1795 he served three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. He was a member of the Connecticut House of Representatives in 1795 and of the state Executive Council from 1795 to 1801.
After the Revolution, Wadsworth became a pioneer in banking, insurance, and the breeding of cattle. He was a founder of the Bank of North America in Philadelphia, of the Hartford Bank, and of the Hartford Library Company, director of the United States Bank, and president of the Bank of New York. Wadsworth was one of the founders of the Hartford Manufacturing Company, the first wool-manufacturing business and the first to use power machinery in the United States. He became a partner in the Hartford and New Haven Insurance Company, Connecticut's first insurance company.
Interested in the improvement of agriculture, he introduced new breeds of cattle from abroad. He represented well the new class of entrepreneurs who led the rapid economic expansion of the young nation.
He died in Hartford, Conn., April 30, 1804, and is interred in the Ancient Burying Ground.
"Thanks to Albert E. Van Dusen from his entry on Jeremiah Wadsworth found at http://www.ctheritage.org/encyclopedia/ct1763_1818/wadsworth.htm, the Connecticut Heritage Gateway, for much of the information in this story. Also to Wikipedia, for the information provided at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremiah_Wadsworth, and to Web site of the "Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, and to Callahan, North, Connecticut's Revolutionary War Leaders A publication of the American Bicentennial Commission of Connecticut (Pequot Press: Chester, Connecticut), 1973, chapter on Jeremiah Wadsworth pp. 36-37"
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