PHILIP ENGLISH, shipping, merchant, import/export |
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Philip English was one
of the foremost fishing and shipping merchants of seventeenth
century Salem, Massachusetts. He was born on the Isle of Jersey,
and immigrated to Salem sometime before 1670 and set himself
up as a general merchant, outfitter of fishing voyages and exporter
of local produce to Spain, France, Ireland, Maryland, Virginia,
Jersey and the West Indies. As early as 1680, he was already
one of the wealthier merchants in town, and, by 1692, he was
said to own a wharf and warehouse, fourteen buildings in Salem,
and twenty-one seagoing vessels. English was one of the first
merchants in Massachusetts to specialize in outfitting voyages
to the offshore banks, and most of his vessels, chiefly two-masted
ketches, divided their year between this branch of the fishery
and the export trade to Europe and the West Indies. Although
originally a mariner himself and one of the very few local merchants
who actually dwelt on the waterfront amongst the seamen he employed,
English maintained a relationship with the maritime community
that was stormy at best. He was a frequent litigant before the
courts, mostly suing his customers for debt; and when the witchcraft
hysteria erupted in 1692, he had to flee the colony for a year
to escape prosecution himself.
Married in 1675 Philip English to Mary
Holingworth, daughter of tavern owner William Holingworth
and his wife, Elinor Story Holingworth. In 1692 both Mary and
Philip were accused and imprisoned during the Salem witchcraft
trials. Aided by ministers and government officials, they escaped
to New York-where they remained for two years. After returning
to Salem in 1694, Mary died at the age of forty-two.
Philip English was a character well-known
in early Salem annals, and was among those who suffered
from John Hathorne`s magisterial harshness. He maintained in
consequence a lasting feud with the old Puritan official. But
at his death English left daughters, one of whom is said to
have married the son of Justice John Hathorne, whom English
had declared he would never forgive. John Hathorne (as the name
was then spelled), the great-grandfather of Nathaniel Hawthorne,
was a magistrate at Salem in the latter part of the seventeenth
century, and officiated at the famous trials for witchcraft
held there. |
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source:
taken partially from Biographical sketch prepared by Dr. Danny
Vickers, Memorial University of Newfoundland.
note: There is much written about Philip & Mary Holingworth
English. They are believed to be grandparents to Nathaniel Hawthorne. |
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