Francis Rotch
(1750–1822)
BIRTH
1750
PLACE
Nantucket, Massachusetts
DEATH
May 20, 1822
PLACE
New Bedford, Massachusetts
FAMILY
HOMES
RELIGIOUS VIEWS
NOT YET RESEARCHED
NOT YET RESEARCHED
MEMBERSHIPS
AWARDS
Francis Rotch (1750–1822) was a Nantucket-born whaling merchant and inventor whose family owned the Dartmouth, one of the ships involved in the Boston Tea Party. In 1773 he tried unsuccessfully to obtain clearance for the tea-laden vessel before protesters destroyed its cargo. During the war he partnered with Aaron Lopez to send a whaling fleet toward the Falkland Islands. He later developed machinery and patents for the industry. The master’s 1802 death year is incorrect.
EARLY LIFE
The exact date and place of Francis Rotch’s birth have not been established in the source used for this entry. The surviving biographical summary provides only limited evidence about childhood, schooling, and the daily circumstances of the household, so those details are not reconstructed here without documentation. What can be stated securely is that this person belonged to the interconnected family world from which HistoryGPS traces participants, relatives, and later descendants of the Revolutionary generation.
The available biographical record identifies Francis Rotch with work or public activity as a merchant. Those roles provide the clearest documented basis for including this person in the database and should be read in the political, military, professional, or household context of the period. Additional claims about employment, public service, or accomplishments have been omitted where the consulted source did not support them.
CAREER
DEATH
In 1773 he tried unsuccessfully to obtain clearance for the tea-laden vessel before protesters destroyed its cargo. During the war he partnered with Aaron Lopez to send a whaling fleet toward the Falkland Islands. Francis Rotch died in 1802, in New Bedford, Massachusetts. The available biographical account does not describe a continuous final medical course. It gives no dependable sequence of treatment and last symptoms from which to reconstruct a more detailed bedside narrative.
MUSEUM
Boston Tea Party Museum
306 Congress St, Boston, MA 02210
PARK
Boston Common
139 Tremont St, Boston, MA 02111
MARKER
Griffin's Wharf - Boston Tea Party Marker
Seaport Boulevard, Boston, Massachusetts, 02110, USA
POPULAR BIOGRAPHIES
Francis Rotch, the Nantucket whaling merchant associated with the tea ship Dartmouth. Bullard studies his family; the other works supply related event and commercial history. Editorial selections prioritize biographical coverage; five standalone biographies were not established. Family and collective biographies, primary writings, references and related studies are labelled individually. Multi-volume works and series are counted as one selection.
1. Defiance of the Patriots: The Boston Tea Party and the Making of America — Benjamin L. Carp. [Collective biography] Find on Amazon
2. The Boston Tea Party — Benjamin Woods Labaree. [Collective biography] Find on Amazon
3. The Rotches — John M. Bullard. [Family biographical reference] Find on Amazon
4. Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America — Eric Jay Dolin. [Related merchant and whaling history] Find on Amazon
5. The History of Nantucket: County, Island, and Town — Alexander Starbuck. [Local and biographical history] Find on Amazon
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