Background
Aaron Lopez was the son of Diego Jose Lopez. His mother was also "of the Lopez family. " He was born in Portugal in 1731.
Aaron Lopez was the son of Diego Jose Lopez. His mother was also "of the Lopez family. " He was born in Portugal in 1731.
On October 13, 1752, Lopez arrived in Newport, Rhode Island with his family. An older half-brother named Moses had been residing in Newport since the middle forties. In Portugal the three Lopez brothers had lived openly as Christians but secretly as Jews. Aaron and his wife had been named Edward and Anna, but on coming to America they adopted Jewish names and were remarried according to Jewish ceremony. Apparently Aaron Lopez' beginnings as a merchant were exceedingly meager, for even by the period of the Seven Years' War he does not appear to have been at all active. It seems that he at first started, as did so many other merchants of the day, by buying, selling, and exchanging only in Newport and Providence.
In 1756 he was in regular correspondence with Henry Lloyd of Boston. At this time, however, his chief interest was the spermaceti candle business in which he and Jacob Roderique Rivera were among the pioneers. By 1761 there were so many competitors in this whale-oil industry that the New England firms formed the United Company of Spermaceti Candlers and arranged price agreements. Previous to 1765 the Lopez shipping was mostly coastwise, and the invoices usually listed boxes of candles.
After 1765 Lopez attempted, in addition to his small business with London, to enter the Bristol trade on a large scale, a venture which proved most disappointing. Far more successful was his later search for new markets in the West Indies. His first factor, Abraham Pereira Mendes, was incompetent, but Mendes' successor, Captain Benjamin Wright, gradually built up a lucrative trade. Markets in the Caribbean were poor until about 1770 when at last Lopez realized a number of profitable ventures and had so extended his commerce that his vessels could have been seen riding the bounding main to Jamaica, Hispaniola, Surinam, Honduras, Newfoundland, England, Holland, Spain, Portugal, Africa, the Azores and Canaries. The debt to his Bristol correspondent, Henry Cruger, Jr. , in 1767 was £10, 514 sterling, but by 1773 this enormous liability appears to have been practically erased. Lopez had learned the necessity of a multiform commerce, and by the seventies he had found prosperity.
The years 1773 and 1774 had seen a tremendous increase in his shipping, but these were the last golden years for both the house of Lopez and the town of Newport. He was still pushing his trade in the West Indies, in Europe, Africa, and America. Indeed, he had even joined Francis Rotch of New Bedford in dispatching a fleet of thirteen whalers to the Falkland Islands. It may be said conservatively that by 1775 he had a complete or part ownership in over thirty vessels.
When the violence of the American Revolution finally broke, Lopez moved from Newport to Leicester, Massachusetts. The war not only brought an abrupt end to his business ventures but left his accounts in utter chaos. In May 1782, while on a journey to Rhode Island with his wife and family, he stopped to water his horse at Scott's Pond near Providence and was accidentally drowned. The tragedy was a blow to his friends throughout the commercial world. Although in 1761 he was refused citizenship in Newport and was forced to go to Massachusetts for it, at the outbreak of the American Revolution no man in Newport was more highly respected.
Quotes from others about the person
"On the 28th of May died that amiable, benevolent, most hospitable & very respectable Gentleman, Mr. Aaron Lopez Merchant . He was a Jew by Nation, was a Merchant of the first Eminence; for Honor & Extent of Commerce probably surpassed by no Mercht in America: He did Business with the greatest Ease & Clearness--always carried about with him a Sweetness of Behav. a calm Urbanity an agreeable & unaffected Politeness of manners. Without a single Enemy & the most universally beloved by an extensive Acquaintance of any man I ever knew. His beneficience to his famy [family] connexions, to his Nation, & to all the World is almost without a Parallel. " - Ezra Stiles, pastor of the Second Congregational Church
Lopez was married to Abigail Lopez. They had seven children. She died in 1762. His second wife was Sarah Rivera, the daughter of Jacob Roderique Rivera. She was the mother of ten children, eight of whom lived to maturity.
