Thomas Hancock was an American businessman. He was an excellent manager of a much-ramified business, with help of which he carefully built up a considerable fortune and a prosperous trade.
Background
Thomas Hancock was born on July 13, 1703, in Massachusetts, United States, the son of a poor parish minister, the Rev. John Hancock, and of Elizabeth Clark. He descended from Nathaniel Hancock, who was in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as early as 1634.
Education
Thomas grew up in the new, sparsely populated settlement of Cambridge Farms, later Lexington, Massachusetts, unschooled, except perhaps by his father, and was apprenticed to a bookseller and bookbinder in Boston when but thirteen years of age.
Career
In 1723 Thomas Hanconk was established in his own bookshop; and in the succeeding period his rise was rapid. With the aid of partners he engaged in paper manufacturing, exported codfish, whale oil, logwood, and potash, supplied rum, molasses, and other provisions to the Newfoundland fishing fleet, and controlled a group of freighting vessels. His marriage to the daughter of Boston’s most prominent book-dealer in 1730 marked the turning point in his career. From that year his business was operated on a larger scale.
Hancock's wealth enabled him to secure influential friends among the most important officers of the Crown in England and the colonies. He made use of these friends skilfully to effect his ends. With their aid, he and his partner, Charles Apthorp, became government agents, and between 1746 and 1758 furnished supplies to all the British forces in Nova Scotia. It was Hancock who, in 1749, sent building material and foodstuff to Chebucto Bay to enable Col. Edward Cornwallis to found the city of Halifax. In 1755, Apthorp and Hancock, acting as agents for the Province of Nova Scotia, engaged the seventeen sloops used to transport the unfortunate Acadians to the colonies farther south. After Apthorp’s death, in 1758, Hancock was able to secure even more of the supply business of Nova Scotia for himself.
His wealth was further increased by his smuggling ventures. Tea, paper, Holland duck, and other goods were surreptitiously shipped from Amsterdam to St. Eustatius in the West Indies, from which port, together with contraband consignments of French molasses concealed in English hogsheads, they were run into Boston harbor as opportunity offered. In his later years, gout and a “Nervous Disorder” almost forced him to withdraw from business, and in 1763 his nephew John Hancock the patriot leader, was made an equal partner in the concern so that he might continue it at the death of his uncle. Thomas Hancock died of apoplexy, August 1, 1764, after being stricken in the Massachusetts State House, while he was serving as a member of the Governor’s Council. He had inherited the Henchman fortune in 1761, and left an estate which has been moderately appraised at about seventy thousand pounds.
Achievements
Personality
Hancock was a determined and untiring, keen and diplomatic, proud, yet a close buyer who carefully priced a wanted commodity in many of the world’s markets.
Connections
On November 5, 1730, Hancock was married to Lydia Henchman, daughter of Boston’s most prominent book-dealer.