Robert Rantoul was the son of Robert and Mary (Preston) Rantoul. His father emigrated from Scotland to Salem, Massachussets, in 1769, became a ship captain, and was lost at sea in 1783. Although born in Salem, the son spent most of his life in Beverly, where he established himself as an apothecary in 1796.
Career
Chosen overseer of the poor in 1804, he devoted thereafter a large part of his time to the affairs of the town.
For fifty years he acted as justice of the peace, and he was also actively interested in school affairs. Elected as a Federalist to the legislature in 1809, he served, in one or the other house, for almost a quarter of a century. It was only when John Quincy Adams began to advocate the "American System" that Rantoul became a supporter of Jackson. As a friend of liberty and equality, he watched jealously the rapid growth of corporations, favored the right of the legislature to build a free bridge in 1826, and won the displeasure of men of wealth who were peculiarly sensitive in regard to vested rights and who insisted on immunity of private corporations from legislative interference.
He was also a member of the constitutional conventions of 1820 and 1853, being temporary chairman of the latter.
A pioneer in the liberal religious revolt, he corresponded with Rammohun Roy of Calcutta on Unitarianism and helped to found in 1810 at Beverly what was probably the first Sunday school in America. Long before he became a life member of the Massachusetts state temperance society when it was organized in 1813, he had been advocating temperance.
Although the greater part of the community jeered him in 1816 for dispensing with liquor at funerals, he consistently advocated temperance until 1833, when he became converted to the cause of total abstinence. A participator in the War of 1812 by the services he rendered to the militia, he became one of the earliest members of the Massachusetts peace society, when it was founded shortly after the war came to a close. As early as 1809 he had opposed capital punishment, but it was not until 1831 that, as a member of the legislative committee appointed to consider the subject, he definitely contributed to the movement for its abolition. In all these reform activities he was typical of a new spirit that aimed definitely to improve social conditions. In the decade before his death he wrote his reminiscences, parts of which were published later by R. S. Rantoul in Essex Institute Historical Collections.
On June 4, 1801, he married Joanna Lovett of Beverly. Of their seven children, Robert Rantoul, 1805-1852, was to forward many of the reforms in which his father was a pioneer.