Thomas Eddy

Thomas Eddy (September 5, 1758 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - September 16, 1827 New York City) was an American merchant, banker, philanthropist and politician from New York.

Early life

He was the son of Irish

Quaker immigrants who had come to America about five years prior to his birth. His father was engaged in the shipping business until 1766 when he went into hardware, but died later the same year. A few years later, the family moved to Bucks County, Pennsylvania. When thirteen years old, Eddy was apprenticed to learn the tanning business in Burlington, New Jersey

but remained there only two years.

Business career

In September 1779, Eddy removed to New York City, and became a merchant, dealing mostly in imported goods which were shipped from England and Ireland by his brother Charles. In 1781, he earned a large amount by the remittance of money from the British headquarters in New York.

In 1782, Eddy married Hannah Hartshorne at New York City. Afterward, he returned to Philadelphia and formed a partnership with his brother George. In the wake of the commercial crisis in the middle of the 1780s, he and his brothers George and Charles went

New York Savings Bank.^[1]

Political career

Eddy had been engaged in charitable work, was elected a governor of the New York Hospital in 1793, and became interested in the reform of the penal laws. He lobbied for inmate labor and

mentally ill

.

Erie Canal

In 1797, Eddy was appointed Treasurer of the Western Inland Lock Navigation Company, which had been established in 1792 with the purpose of developing a navigable route up the

Federalists in New York, and the two of them decided to propose the creation of a Commission to explore two possible routes of a canal – either to Lake Ontario or to Lake Erie. They would report their findings to the New York State Legislature after their expedition to the west. On March 13, 1810, Platt presented his project for a bipartisan Canal Commission to the State Legislature, and received overwhelming support, and Eddy was appointed one of the Commissioners. The Erie Canal

was eventually opened in 1825.

References

^ The Philanthropy Hall of Fame, Thomas Eddy

Sources

Bio in Lives of American Merchants by Freeman Hunt (Derby & Jackson, New York, 1858; pages 329ff)
[1] "Newgate" Prison, at Correctional History
The New York Civil List compiled by Franklin Benjamin Hough (page 40; Weed, Parsons and Co., 1858)

[1] The Philanthropy Hall of Fame, Thomas Eddy

[1]

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