Boston Brahmin

Colonial Boston – The Boston Common in 1768

The Boston Brahmin or Boston elite are members of Boston's traditional upper class. They form an integral part of the historic core of the East Coast establishment, and are often associated with the distinctive Boston Brahmin accent, Harvard University, and traditional Anglo-American customs and clothing. Descendants of the earliest English colonists, such as those who came to America on the Mayflower or the Arbella, are often considered to be the most representative of the Boston Brahmins.

The term was coined by the physician and writer Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., in an 1860 article in the Atlantic Monthly. The term Brahmin refers to the highest ranking caste of people in the traditional Hindu system of castes. In the United States, it has been applied to the old, wealthy New England families of British Protestant origin which were influential in the development of American institutions and culture.

The term effectively underscores the strong conviction of the New England gentry that they were a people set apart by destiny to guide the American experiment as their ancestors had played a leading role in founding it. The term also illustrates the erudite and exclusive nature of the New England gentry as perceived by outsiders, and may also refer to their interest in Eastern religions, fostered perhaps by the impact in the 19th century of the transcendentalist writings of New England literary icons such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman, and the enlightened appeal of Universalist Unitarian movements of the same period.

Characteristics

Typical dress of the Boston elite

The nature of the Brahmins is hinted at by the doggerel "Boston Toast" by Holy Cross alumnus John Collins Bossidy:

And this is good old Boston,

The home of the bean and the cod,

Where the Lowells talk only to Cabots,

And the Cabots talk only to God.

While some 19th-century Brahmin families of large fortune were of bourgeois origin, others were of aristocratic origin. The new families were often the first to seek, in typically British fashion, suitable marriage alliances with those old aristocratic New England families that were descended from landowners in England to elevate and cement their social standing. The Winthrops, Dudleys, Saltonstalls, Winslows, Lowells, and Lymans (descended from English magistrates, gentry, and aristocracy) were, by and large, happy with this arrangement. All of Boston's "Brahmin elite", therefore, maintained the received culture of the old English gentry, including cultivating the personal excellence that they imagined maintained the distinction between gentlemen and freemen, and between women and ladies. They saw it as their duty to maintain what they defined as high standards of excellence, duty, and restraint. Cultivated, urbane, and dignified, a Boston Brahmin was supposed to be the very essence of enlightened aristocracy. The ideal Brahmin was not only wealthy, but displayed what was considered suitable personal virtues and character traits.

The Brahmin was expected to maintain the customary English reserve in his dress, manner, and deportment, cultivate the arts, support charities such as hospitals and colleges, and assume the role of community leader. Although the ideal called on him to transcend commonplace business values, in practice many found the thrill of economic success quite attractive. The Brahmins warned each other against avarice and insisted upon personal responsibility. Scandal and divorce were unacceptable. The total system was buttressed by the strong extended family ties present in Boston society. Young men attended the same prep schools, colleges, and private clubs, and heirs married heiresses. Family not only served as an economic asset, but also as a means of moral restraint. Most belong to the Unitarian or Episcopal churches, although some were Congregationalists or Methodists. Politically they were successively Federalists, Whigs, and Republicans. They were marked by their manners and once distinctive elocution, the Boston Brahmin accent, a version of the New England accent. Their distinctive Anglo-American manner of dress has been much imitated and is the foundation of the style now informally known as preppy. Many of the Brahmin families trace their ancestry back to the original 17th- and 18th-century colonial ruling class consisting of Massachusetts governors and magistrates, Harvard presidents, distinguished clergy and fellows of the Royal Society of London (a leading scientific body), while others entered New England aristocratic society during the 19th century with their profits from commerce and trade, often marrying into established Brahmin families such as the Welds, Saltonstalls, Lymans, Sargents, Emersons, Winslows, Warrens and Winthrops.

Brahmin families

Adams Family

American statesmen, Governor of Massachusetts, and founding father, Samuel Adams

• Samuel Adams (1722–1803): Founding Father
• John Adams (1735–1826): Founding Father and second President of the United States, husband of Abigail Smith Adams (1744–1818)
  • John Quincy Adams (1767–1848): sixth President of the United States
    • Charles Francis Adams, Sr. (1807–1886): Ambassador, U.S. congressman
      • Charles Francis Adams, Jr. (1835–1915): Civil War general
      • John Quincy Adams II (1833–1894): lawyer, politician
        • Charles Francis Adams III (1866–1954): U.S. Secretary of the Navy
          • Charles Francis Adams IV (1910–1999): industrialist, first president of Raytheon
      • Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918): author
      • Brooks Adams (1848–1927): historian
• Ivers Whitney Adams (1838–1914): founder of the oldest continuously playing professional baseball team, the Boston Red Stockings

Amory Family

• John Amory Lowell (1798–1881): merchant
• Thomas Coffin Amory (1812–1889): lawyer, author
• Thomas Jonathan Coffin Amory (1828–1864): Civil War general
• Ernest Amory Codman (1869–1940): surgeon
• Cleveland Amory (1917–1998): author

Appleton Family

American merchant, Samuel Appleton (1766-1853).

Patrilineal line:

• Daniel Appleton (1785–1849) - ( DAppleton5, SAppleton4, OAppleton3, SAppleton2, SAppleton1) - publisher
• Frances Elizabeth Appleton (1817-1861) (daughter of Nathan) - wife of famous American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882). She died in a tragic house fire.
• George Swett Appleton (1821-1878) (son of Daniel) - scholar, art collector and publisher
• Harriet Sumner Appleton (1841-1923) (daughter of Nathan) - married Greely S Curtis, lieutenant colonel and commander of the 1st Massachusetts Volunteer Cavalry during the civil war.
• Jane Means Appleton (1806-1863) (Daughter of Jesse) wife of U.S. President Franklin Pierce, was First Lady of the United States from 1853 to 1857
• Jesse Appleton (1772-1819) - ( FAppleton, IAppleton2, IAppleton1, SAppleton2, SAppleton1) second president of Bowdoin College
• John Appleton (1815-1864): 21st United States Ambassador to Russia , assistant Secretary of State, diplomat, U.S. congressman
• John Appleton: Chief Justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court
• John F. Appleton: lawyer and Union colonel in the American Civil War
• John James Appleton (1789–1864): ambassador
• Mary Appleton (1813-1889) (daughter of Nathan) was married to Robert James Mackintosh (1811-1864), son of Sir James Mackintosh and his second wife, was a British colonial governor. As Governor of Antigua, he was the viceroy in the Leeward Islands colony between 1850 and 1855.
• Nathan Appleton (1779-1861) ( IAppleton3, IAppleton2, IAppleton1, SAppleton2, SAppleton1) - U.S. congressman and merchant, co-founder of Lowell MA.
• Nathaniel Appleton (1693–1784): Congregational minister of Cambridge MA
• Samuel Appleton (1624-1696)' (Son) military and government leader in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Province of Massachusetts Bay and King Philip's War
• Samuel Appleton (1766-1853): (brother of Nathan) merchant and philanthropist
• Thomas Gold Appleton (1812-1884) (Son of Nathan) writer and art patron
• William Appleton (1786–1862): U.S. congressman
• William Henry Appleton (1814-1899) (Son of Daniel) publisher
• William Sumner Appleton (1874-1947) (GrandSon of Nathan) philanthropist

Other notable relatives:

1. Charles Appleton Longfellow (1844-1893) - Snuck away to join the Civil War where he was gravely wounded. He inspired Longfellow's poem I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.
2. Ernest Wadsworth Longfellow (1845-1921) - renowned artist and art collector who donated a sizeable collection to the Boston Museum of Art.
3. Frances Longfellow (1847-1848) - When the younger Fanny was born on April 7, 1847, Dr. Nathan Cooley Keep administered ether as the first obstetric anesthetic in the United States to Fanny Longfellow
4. Alice Mary Longfellow (1850-1928) - noteworth philanthropist and historical preservationist. Never married.
5. Edith Longfellow (1853-1915) - married Boston lawyer, Richard Henry Dana III, son of the popular writer Richard Henry Dana, Jr., author of Two Years Before the Mast.
6. Anne Allegra Longfellow (1855-1934) - the youngest daughter of the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), she married a Boston lawyer. Her father immortalized her in his poem "The Children's Hour" as "laughing Allegra," referring to her middle name.

• Thomas Storrow Brown (1803-1888): ( RAppleton, SAppleton4, SAppleton3, SAppleton2, SAppleton1) - journalist, writer, orator, and revolutionary in Lower Canada (present-day Quebec)
• Edward Augustus Holyoke (1728–1829): educator and physician
• Alpheus Spring Packard (1839-1905): ( EFAppleton, JAppleton, FAppleton, IAppleton2, IAppleton1, SAppleton2, SAppleton1) - entomologist and palaeontologist
• William Alfred Packard (1830-1909): classical scholar, professor at Princeton University
• Charles Storrow Williams (1827–?): Director of Railroad Transportation for the Confederate States of America
• Edward H. Williams (1824–1899): physician and railroad executive

Bacon Family

U.S. Congressman and lawyer, Robert Low Bacon (1884-1938)

• Robert Bacon (1860-1919) - 39th US Secretary of State, US Ambassador to France, he just barely missed sailing on the Titanic at the end of his ambassadorship in 1912.
• Robert Low Bacon (1884-1938) (son of Robert) - U.S. congressman (NY-1)
• Gaspar Griswold Bacon (1886-1947): (son of Robert) politician - 51st Lt Gov of Massachusetts, President of Massachusetts State Senate, Army Veteran and chief of staff to Gen Patton.
• David Bacon (1914-1943) : (born Gaspar G Bacon Jr) - notable Hollywood Film actor, murdered in Santa Monica CA.

Bates Family

Philanthropist, business magnate, namesake of Bates College, Benjamin Bates.

Originally from Boston and Britain, also descended from John Alden (c1599-1687) of the Mayflower.

• Benjamin Bates I (c. 1651–1710); merchant banker, family patriarch
• Benjamin Bates II (1716 – c. 1820); member of the Hell Fire Club, revolutionary
• Benjamin Bates IV (1808–1878); philanthropist, namesake and benefactor of Bates College
• John Grenville Bates (1880-1944) - a co-founder of the American Kennel Club[2] and former President and Show Chairman of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show.
• Joshua Bates (1788-1864); Barings Bank partner, managed many Brahmin family fortunes, advised Adams family on Court protocol, his only daughter became wife to a Belgian prime minister.

Boylston Family

• Thomas Boylston (1644-1695): doctor, son of the English immigrant.
• Susanna Boylston (1708-1797) - the mother of the 2nd President of the United States, John Adams (1735-1826), and grandmother of the 6th President, John Quincy Adams (1767-1848).
• Zabdiel Boylston (1679-1766): physician, participated in many notable "firsts" in New England medical science

• Hallowell-Boylston Family
  • Mary Boylston (1722-1795) in 1746 married a British naval officer, Benjamin Hallowell (1725-1799), who later became His Majesty's Commissioner of the Port of Boston, serving during the time of the Boston Tea Party. Because of their Loyalists background, this family had to flee Boston during the American Revolutionary War.
  • Ward Nicholas Hallowell-Boylston (1749-1828): benefactor, Harvard University
  • Benjamin Hallowell-Carew (1761-1834) - a senior officer (admiral) in the Royal Navy. He was one of the select group of officers, referred to by Lord Nelson as his "Band of Brothers", who served with him at the Battle of the Nile.
  • Mary Hallowell (1762-)
  • Zabdiel Boylston Adams (1829-1902): noted surgeon from US Civil War.

Bradlee Family

Direct line:

• Nathan Bradley I (1631-1701): first family member born in America, in Dorchester, Boston, Massachusetts, in 1631
• Samuel Bradlee (1707-1768): Constable of Dorchester, Massachusetts
  • Nathaniel Bradlee (1746-1813): Boston Tea Party participant, member of Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association
  • Pvt. Josiah Bradlee I (1754-1798): Boston Tea Party participant; m. Hannah Putnam (1758-1793), daughter of Maj. Gen. Israel Putnam (1718-1790)
    • Josiah Bradlee III (1837-1902) (Harvard): m. Alice Crowninshield
    • Frederick Josiah Bradlee I (1866-1951) (Harvard): Director of the Boston Bank
      • Frederick Josiah Bradlee, Jr. (1892-1970) (Harvard-1915): on the first All-American football team at Harvard; m. Chevalier Josephine de Gersdorff
        • Frederick Josiah Bradlee III (1919-2003): Broadway actor, author
        • Benjamin Crowninshield Bradlee (1921–2014) (Harvard-1942): Chief Executive Editor of The Washington Post
  • Lt. Col. Samuel Bradlee, Jr.: lieutenant colonel during the American Revolutionary War
  • Thomas Bradlee (1744-1805): Boston Tea Party participant; member of Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics Association; Member of the St. Andrews Lodge of Freemasons
  • Capt. David Bradlee (1742-1811): Boston Tea Party participant; Captain in the Continental Army, member of the St. Andrews Lodge of Freemasons
  • Sarah Bradlee (1740-1835): "Mother of the Boston Tea Party"

Cabot Family

The Boston Brahmin Cabot family descended from John Cabot (b. 1680 in Jersey, one of the Channel Islands), who emigrated from his birthplace to Salem, Massachusetts in 1700.

• John Cabot (1669-1742) (b. in Isle of Jersey) - English immigrant and successful ship merchant
  • Francis Cabot (1717-1786) (b. in Salem) – ship merchant
  • Joseph Cabot (1720-1767) (b. in Salem)– successful ship merchant
    • Capt. John Cabot (b. 1745 in Salem) John Cabot House namesake
    • Joseph Cabot Jr. (b. 1746 in Salem) – ship merchant
    • George Cabot (1752-1823) – successful ship merchant, 1791-1796: US Senator for Massachusetts (Federalist)
      • Henry Cabot (1783-1864) -
        • Anna Sophia Cabot (1821-1900)- md John Ellerton Lodge (1807-1862) creating the Cabot-Lodge Family (See below)

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Chaffee Family

Lt Gen Adna R Chaffee (1842-1914) - Civil War Veteran and US Military Governor of the Philippine Islands

Originally of Hingham, Massachusetts:

• Thomas Chaffee (1616-1683) - English Immigrant to America - settled Swansea MA
• Jonathan Chaffee (1678-1766) (grandson) businessman and landowner in Rehoboth MA.
• Matthew Chaffee (1657–1723), Boston landowner
• Chaffee, Adna R I, Lt Gen (1842-1914): U.S. general, Civil War and Indian Wars Veteran, Military Governor of the Philippine Islands.
• Chaffee, Adna R II, Maj Gen (1884-1941) - U.S. general, Veteran of WWI, Father of US Armored Forces, namesake of M-24 US Army Light Tank and Fort Chaffee, Arkansas.
• Zechariah Chafee (1885-1957) - philosopher, civil libertarian
• John Hubbard Chafee (1922-1999) - 66th Governor of Rhode Island, U.S. senator, USMC Veteran of WWII and Korean War.
• Lincoln Davenport Chafee (1953) - 74th Governor of Rhode Island, former U.S. senator, 2016 U.S. presidential candidate for the Democratic party

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Choate Family

Federal judge, founder of Choate Rosemary Hall, William Gardner Choate

• Rufus Choate (1799-1859): U.S. senator
• George C. S. Choate (1827–1896): founder of Choate Sanitarium, Pleasantville, New York
• Joseph Hodges Choate (1832-1917) - lawyer, US Ambassador to the United Kingdom (1899-1905).
• William Gardner Choate (1830-1920): U.S. federal judge, founder of Choate Rosemary Hall
• Sarah Choate Sears (1858–1935): art patron
• Robert B. Choate, Jr. (1924–2009): businessman
• Elizabeth Choate Spykma (1896–1965): writer

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Coffin Family

Officer of the Royal British Navy, Sir Isaac Coffin (1759-1839)

Originally of Newbury and Nantucket:

• Tristram Coffin (1605-1681): colonist, original owner of Nantucket
• William Coffin (1699-1775): merchant, co-founder of Trinity Church
• Sir Isaac Coffin (1759-1839): British naval officer
• Charles E. Coffin (1841–1912): industrialist, U.S. congressman
• Charles Albert Coffin (1844-1926): industrialist, co-founder of General Electric
• Henry Coffin Nevins (1843–1892): industrialist
• John Coffin Jones (1750-1829): Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives
  • John Coffin Jones (1796-1861): U.S. Minister to Hawaii
• Thomas Coffin Amory (1812-1889): lawyer, author
• Thomas Isaac Coffin Amory (1828-1864): Civil War general

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Coolidge Family

Calvin Coolidge, 30th President of the United States.

• John Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933): 30th President of the United States
• Thomas Jefferson Coolidge (1831-1920): Financier, industrialist, and civic leader
• John Calvin Coolidge (1906-2000): businessman; son of U.S. President Calvin Coolidge
• Archibald Cary Coolidge (1866-1928): educator
• John Gardner Coolidge (1863-1936): U.S. ambassador
• Charles Austin Coolidge (1844-1926): U.S. Army general

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Cooper Family

Congregational minister, Samuel Cooper

• John Cooper (1609–1669): colonist
• Samuel Cooper (1725-1783): clergyman - Noted Clergyman of the American Revolution -Pastor of Brattle Street Church - Co-Founder of American Academy of Arts & Sciences - Chaplain of the General Court (1758-1770 / 1777-1783)
• Samuel D. Cooper, Jr. (1750–1824): revolutionary
• Samuel D. Cooper III (1778–1853): trade merchant
• Frederick Taber Cooper (1864-1937): writer, Ph.D.

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Crowninshield Family

Colonist, Benjamin Williams Crowninshield

• Johann Casper Richter von Kronenscheldt: , immigrant from Saxony, Germany, physician, colonist
• Jacob Crowninshield (1770–1808): U.S. congressman
  • Arent S. Crowninshield (1843–1908): U.S. Navy admiral
• Caspar Crowninshield (1837-1897): Union Army general
• Benjamin William Crowninshield (1837–1892): Union Army colonel
• Frederic Crowninshield (1845-1918): first president of the National Society of Mural Painters
• Benjamin Williams Crowninshield (1772-1851): 5th U.S. Secretary of Navy
• Frank Crowninshield (1872-1947): creator and editor of Vanity Fair
• Bowdin Bradlee Crowninshield (1867–1948): American naval architect

Descendants by marriage:

• William Crowninshield Endicott (1826–1900): 5th U.S. Secretary of War
• Frederick Josiah Bradlee, Jr. (1892–1970): on the first All-American football team (from Harvard)
• Chevalier Benjamin Crowninshield Bradlee (1921–2014): Editor-in-chief of The Washington Post

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Cushing Family

Originally of Hingham, Massachusetts:

• Caleb Cushing (1800–1879): U.S. congressman and Attorney General
• John Perkins Cushing (1787–1862): China trade merchant, investor
• Thomas Cushing (1725–1788): statesman, revolutionary
• William Cushing (1732–1810): U.S. Supreme Court justice
• Harvey Cushing (1869–1939): neurosurgeon

Descendant by marriage:

• Albert Cushing Read (1887–1967): naval officer

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Dana Family

• Richard Dana (1699–1772): colonial Boston politician
• Francis Dana (1743–1811): revolutionary
• Richard Henry Dana, Sr. (1787–1879): lawyer, author
• Richard Henry Dana, Jr. (1815–1882): lawyer, author (Two Years Before the Mast)

Danforth family

Danforth Family

• Nicholas Danforth, Gent. (1589-1639), immigrant, arrived in 1634 Massachusetts Bay Colony
  • Dep. Gov. Judge Thomas Danforth (1623-1699), treasurer of Harvard, Steward of Harvard, Deputy Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Lord Proprietor of southern Maine until 1680, Justifce of the Massachusetts Bay Colony Superior Court, proprietor of 15,000 acres.
  • Rev. Samuel Danforth (1626-1674), authority, one of the five founding fellows of Harvard, ordained on 24 Sep 1650, pastor of The First Church of Roxbury, Boston
  • Jonathan Danforth (c1627-1712), Founder of Billiercia, Massachusetts Bay Colony

Delano family

Delano Family

• Columbus Delano (1809–1896): U.S. Secretary of the Interior
• Jane Delano (1862–1919): founder of the American Red Cross Nursing Service
• Paul Delano (1745–1842): naval officer
• Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882–1945): President of the United States
• Frederic A. Delano (1863-1953): civic reformer and railroad president

Derby family

Derby Family

• Capt. Richard Derby, Jr. (1712-1783), founder of the Derby shipping firm, had a net worth of $70,000 at the time of his death
  • Capt. Richard Derby III (1736-1781), Member of Provincial Congress
  • Elias Hasket "King" Derby (1739-1799) America's first millionaire and the Founder of the East India Shipping trade
    • Gen. Elias Hasket Derby, Jr. (1766-1826), military general and a shipping merchant
  • Capt. John Derby (1741-1812), delivered the news of the beginning and the end of the American Revolutionary War to the British in secret

Dudley family

Dudley Family

• Thomas Dudley (1576–1653): Governor of Massachusetts, a founder of Harvard College
• Anne Dudley Bradstreet (1612–1672): first American poet, wife of Royal Governor Simon Bradstreet
• Joseph Dudley (1647–1720): Royal Governor of Massachusetts, President of the Dominion of New England, Chief Justice of New York, Member of Parliament, Lt. Governor of the Isle of Wight
• Paul Dudley (1675–1751): Chief Justice of Massachusetts, member of the Royal Society, founder of the Dudleian lectures at Harvard
• Paul Dudley Sargent (1745–1828): Army colonel and Revolutionary War hero
• Dudley Saltonstall (1738–1796): Naval commodore during the Revolution and successful privateer

Dwight family

American historian and president of Yale University, Timothy Dwight

Dwight Family

• Timothy Dwight IV (1752–1817): president of Yale University
• Joseph Dwight (1703–1765): lawyer, French and Indian War veteran
• James Dwight Dana (1813–1895): geologist

Eliot family

President of Harvard University, Charles William Eliot

Eliot Family

• Charles William Eliot (1834–1926): president of Harvard University
  • Charles Eliot (1859–1897): landscape architect
  • Samuel A. Eliot II (1862–1950): president of the American Unitarian Association
• William Greenleaf Eliot (1811–1887): educator, Unitarian minister, and civic leader
  • Henry Ware Eliot (1843–1919) industrialist and philanthropist, co-founder of Washington University
    • T. S. Eliot (1888–1965): poet
• Samuel Eliot Morison (1887–1976): maritime author
• Theodore Lyman Eliot (1928-...), diplomat

Descendant by marriage:

• Charles Eliot Norton (1827–1908): author

Emerson family

Massachusetts minister, William Emerson

Emerson Family

• Rev. William Emerson (1769–1811): clergyman; m. Ruth Haskins Emerson
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882): poet; m. Lydia Jackson Emerson

Endicott family

Endicott Family

Salem:

• William Crowninshield Endicott (1826–1900): U.S. Secretary of War

Dedham:

• Augustus Bradford Endicott (1818–1910): politician
  • • Philip Endicott Young (1885–1955): industrialist
  • Henry Bradford Endicott (1853–1920): industrialist
    • Henry Wendell Endicott (1880–1954)

Fabens family

Fabens Family

Of Marblehead and Salem:

• William Fabens (1810–1883): lawyer, member of Assembly, Senate
  • William Chandler Fabens (1843–1903): Lynn attorney, namesake of Fabens Building
• Samuel Augustus Fabens (1813–1899): master mariner in the East India and California trade
• Francis Alfred Fabens (1814–1872): mercantile businessman, San Francisco judge, attorney
• Joseph Warren Fabens (1821–1875): U.S. Consul at Cayenne, businessman, Envoy Extraordinary of the Dominican Republic
• George Wilson Fabens (1857–1939): attorney, land commissioner and superintendent of Southern Pacific Railroad, namesake of Fabens, Texas

Forbes family

Forbes Family

• John Murray Forbes (1813–1898): industrialist
• John Forbes Kerry (b. 1943): United States Secretary of State, senator from Massachusetts (1985–2013)
• Elliot Forbes (1917–2006): conductor and musicologist
• Robert Bennet Forbes (1804–1889): sea captain, China merchant, ship owner, writer

Gardner family

American businessman and art collector, John Lowell Gardner

Gardner Family

Originally of Essex county:

• Samuel Pickering Gardner (1767–1843): merchant
• John Lowell Gardner (1808–1884): merchant
• John Lowell Gardner II (1837–1898): merchant
• Augustus P. Gardner (1865–1918): U.S. congressman

Gillett family

• Jonathan Gillett (1609–1677): colonist
• Edward Bates Gillett (1817–1899): Attorney
  • Frederick Huntington Gillett (1851–1935): 37th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives
  • Arthur Lincoln Gillett (1859–1938): clergyman

Healey/Dall family

• Mark Healey (1791–1872): originally of New Hampshire, merchant and first president of the Merchant's Bank
  • Caroline Wells Healey (1822–1912), writer, feminist, and abolitionist
  • Charles Henry Appleton Dall (1816–1886), first Unitarian minister to India
    • William Healey Dall (1845–1912), malacologist, paleontologist, and explorer of Alaska

Holmes family

Holmes Family

• Abiel Holmes (1763–1837): clergyman
  • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894): doctor, author
    • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841–1935): U.S. Supreme Court justice

Jackson family

Jackson Family

• Edward Jackson (1708–1757): colonist; m. Dorothy Quincy Jackson
  • Jonathan Jackson (1743–1810): merchant, revolutionary; m. Hannah Tracy Jackson
    • Charles Jackson (1775–1855): Massachusetts Supreme Court justice
      • Amelia Lee Jackson, who married Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. above
    • Patrick Tracy Jackson (1780–1847): co-founder of the Boston Manufacturing Company
    • Hannah Jackson: wife of Francis Cabot Lowell
• Lydia Jackson: wife of Ralph Waldo Emerson

Lawrence family

Lawrence Family

• Samuel Lawrence (d. 1827): revolutionary
  • Amos Lawrence (1786–1852): merchant
    • Amos Adams Lawrence (1814–1886): abolitionist
      • William Lawrence (1850–1941): Episcopal bishop
        • William Appleton Lawrence (1889–1963): Episcopal bishop
        • Frederic C. Lawrence (1899–1989): Episcopal bishop
  • Abbott Lawrence (1792–1855): U.S. congressman, founder of Lawrence, Massachusetts
  • Luther Lawrence (d. 1839): politician

Descendant by marriage: Abbott Lawrence Lowell (1856–1943): president of Harvard University

Lodge family

Lodge Family

• John Ellerton Lodge (1807-1862), married Anna Cabot
  • Henry Cabot Lodge (1850–1924): U.S. senator
    • George Cabot Lodge (1873–1909): poet
      • Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. (1902–1985): U.S. senator, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations
        • George Cabot Lodge II (b. 1927): Harvard Business School professor, 1962 U.S. Senate candidate from Massachusetts against Edward M. Kennedy
        • Henry Sears Lodge (b. 1930)
      • John Davis Lodge (1903–1985): 79th governor of Connecticut, U.S. ambassador

Lowell family

Main article: Lowell family

Lyman family

• Richard Lyman (1580–1640): a founder of Hartford, Connecticut; cousin of Lord Mayor of London Sir John Lyman of the Lyman Baronets of England
• Roswell Lyman: China trade merchant, had an interest in The Ann & Hope
• Theodore Lyman (1753–1839): China trade merchant, commissioned Samuel McIntire to build one of New England's finest country houses, The Vale
• Theodore Lyman II (1792–1849): brigadier general of militia, Massachusetts state representative, mayor of Boston
• Theodore Lyman III (1833–1897): natural scientist, aide-de-camp to Major General Meade during the American Civil War, and United States congressman from Massachusetts
• Theodore Lyman IV (1874–1954): director of Jefferson Physics Lab, Harvard; eponym of the Lyman series of spectral lines. The crater Lyman on the far side of the Moon is named after him, as is the Lyman Physics Building at Harvard.
• George Williams Lyman (1786–1880): developed textile mills, director of the Boston and Lowell Railroad and the Columbian Bank, president of the Massachusetts Hospital Life Insurance Company. His first wife was Elizabeth Gray Otis, the daughter of Harrison Gray Otis (U.S. senator and mayor of Boston) and Sally Foster Otis, prominent Bostonians who built a noted Federal-style mansion still standing.
  • • • Arthur T. Lyman (1832–1915), and his sisters Sarah (Mrs. Philip H. Sears) and Lydia (Mrs. Robert Treat Paine)
        • Arthur T. Lyman, Jr. (1861–1933): married Susan Cabot. Director and officer of textile manufacturing companies and the Massachusetts Life Insurance Company. Board member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Waltham Hospital. He was active in politics as president of the Democratic Club of Massachusetts, chairman of the State Democratic Committee.

Minot family

Minot Family

• Charles Sedgwick Minot (1852–1914): anatomist
• George Richards Minot (1885–1950): winner of the Nobel Prize in Medicine
• Henry Davis Minot (1859–1890): ornithologist
• Susan Minot (b. 1956): author

Norcross family

Norcross Family

Original from Watertown, Massachusetts

• Otis Norcross (1811–1882): mayor of Boston
• Eleanor Norcross (1854–1923): artist

Otis family

Otis Family

• James Otis, Jr. (1725–1783): revolutionary
• Mercy Otis Warren (1728–1814): playwright, revolutionary
• Samuel Allyne Otis (1740–1814): politician
• Harrison Gray Otis (1765–1848): U.S. senator, mayor of Boston

Parkman family

Parkman Family

• Samuel Parkman (1751–1824): investor
• George Parkman (1790–1849): philanthropist, victim of a highly publicized murder
• Francis Parkman, Jr. (1823–1893): historian

Peabody family

Entrepreneur and philanthropist who founded the House of Morgan and the Peabody Institute, George Peabody

Peabody Family

• Catherine Endicott Peabody (1808–1833)
• Elizabeth Palmer Peabody (1804–1894): American educator who opened the first English-language kindergarten in the United States
• Endicott Peabody (1857–1944): Episcopal priest and founder of the Groton School for Boys
• Endicott "Chubb" Peabody (1920–1997): governor of Massachusetts
• George Peabody (1795–1869): entrepreneur and philanthropist who founded the House of Morgan and the Peabody Institute
• Joseph Peabody (1757–1844): merchant, shipowner, and philanthropist whose company sailed clipper ships in the Old China Trade from its base in Salem, Massachusetts
• Mary Tyler Peabody Mann (1806–1887): American author
• Nathaniel Peabody (1774–1855)
• Richard R. Peabody (1892–1936): author of The Common Sense of Drinking, a major influence on Alcoholics Anonymous founder Bill Wilson
• Sophia Amelia Peabody Hawthorne (1809–1871): painter, illustrator, and wife of American author Nathaniel Hawthorne

Perkins family

Perkins Family

• James Perkins (1761–1822): founder of the Boston Athenaeum, pioneer of the China trade, merchant, philanthropist
• Thomas Handasyd Perkins (1764–1854): merchant, philanthropist
• Charles Perkins (1823–1886): art historian, philanthropist, founder of the Museum of Fine Arts
• Edward Perkins (1856–1905): constitutional lawyer
• Maxwell Perkins (1884–1947): literary editor of Hemingway, Faulkner, Fitzgerald

Phillips family

Educator and founder of Phillips Exeter Academy, John Phillips

Phillips Family

• Christopher H. Phillips (1920–2008): politician and diplomat
• Samuel Phillips, Jr. (1752–1802): politician, founder of Phillips Academy
• John Phillips (1719–1795): educator, founder of Phillips Exeter Academy
• John Sanborn Phillips (1861-1949): publisher of McClure's Magazine
• Wendell Phillips (1811–1884): abolitionist
• William Phillips (1920–2008): diplomat

Other notable relatives:

• Samuel Phillips Huntington (1927-2008): Harvard Political Science Professor and Author; grandson of John Sanborn Phillips
• Charles F. Brush (1849-1929): inventor and philanthropist
• Bill Gates (1955-): billionaire software pioneer and philanthropist

Pickering family

• Timothy Pickering, 3rd United States Secretary of State, 2nd United States Secretary of War, 5th United States Postmaster General, American Revolutionary War colonel, Adjutant General of the American Revolutionary  Continental Army

Putnam family

Putnam Family

• James Putnam (1725–1789): last attorney general in Massachusetts before American Revolution; judge and politician in New Brunswick
• James Putnam (1756–1838): Canadian politician
• Israel Putnam (1718–1790): American army general during the Revolutionary War
• William Lowell Putnam (1861–1924) and Elizabeth Lowell Putnam
  • George P. Putnam (1887–1950): publisher, explorer, husband of Amelia Earhart
  • Katherine L. Putnam (1890–1983): wife of Harvey Hollister Bundy
  • Roger Lowell Putnam (1893–1972): politician, businessman

Quincy family

Quincy Family

• Edmund Quincy (1602–1636): settled in Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1633
• Josiah Quincy II (1744–1775): lawyer, revolutionary
  • Josiah Quincy III (1772–1864): U.S. congressman, mayor of Boston, president of Harvard
• Dorothy Quincy Hancock: wife of John Hancock
• Abigail Smith Adams (1744–1818): wife of John Adams
  • John Quincy Adams (1767–1848): President of the United States

Rice family

Rice Family

Originally of Sudbury, Massachusetts:

• Deacon Edmund Rice (1594–1663): colonist
• Alexander Hamilton Rice (1818–1895): industrialist, mayor of Boston, governor of Massachusetts, U.S. congressman
  • Alexander Hamilton Rice, Jr. (1875–1956): physician, geographer and explorer
• Americus Vespucius Rice (1835–1904): general, U.S. congressman
• Edmund Rice (1842–1906): U.S. Army general, Medal of Honor recipient
• Edmund Rice (1819–1889): U.S. congressman
• Henry Mower Rice (1816–1894): U.S. senator
• Luther Rice (1783–1836): Baptist clergyman, missionary to India
• Thomas Rice (1768–1854): U.S. congressman
• William Marsh Rice (1816–1900): businessman, founder of Rice University
• William North Rice (1845–1928): geologist, educator
• William Whitney Rice (1826–1896): U.S. congressman
• William B. Rice (1840–1909): industrialist, philanthropist

Saltonstall family

Saltonstall Family

• Leverett Saltonstall I (1783–1845): politician, educator
• Leverett Saltonstall (1892–1979): U.S. senator
  • William L. Saltonstall (1927–2009): politician
• Philip Saltonstall Weld (1915–1984): World War II commando, environmentalist

Sargent family

• Colonel Epes Sargent (1690–1762): colonel of militia before the Revolution and a justice of the general session court for more than 30 years
  • Paul Dudley Sargent (1745–1828): Revolutionary officer, one of the founding overseers of Bowdoin College
    • Harrison Tweed (1885–1969): lawyer and civic leader
      • Tweed Roosevelt (1942–): great-grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt
  • John Sargent (1750–1824): Loyalist officer during the American Revolution
    • Winthrop Sargent (1753–1820): patriot, governor, politician, and writer; member of the Federalist Party
    • Judith Sargent Murray (1751–1820): feminist, essayist, playwright, and poet; her home is the Sargent House Museum
  • Daniel Sargent, Sr. (1730–1806): merchant, owned Sargent's Wharf in Boston
    • Daniel Sargent (1764–1842): merchant, politician
      • Daniel Sargent Curtis (1825–1908): lawyer, banker, trustee of the BPL, owner of Palazzo Barbaro
    • Henry Sargent (1770–1845): painter and military man
    • Henry Winthrop Sargent (1810–1882): horticulturist and landscape gardener
    • Lucius Manlius Sargent (1786–1867): author, antiquarian, and temperance advocate
      • Horace Binney Sargent (1821–1908): Civil War general, politician
    • John Singer Sargent (1856–1925): artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation"
    • Charles Sprague Sargent (1841–1927): botanist, first director of Harvard University's Arnold Arboretum
    • Winthrop Sargent Gilman (1808–1884): head of the banking house of Gilman, Son & Co. in New York City
    • Epes Sargent (1813–1880): editor, poet and playwright
    • Francis W. Sargent (1915–1998): 64th governor of Massachusetts
    • Benjamin Crowninshield Bradlee (1921–2014) (Harvard-1942): editor of The Washington Post
    • Frances Sargent Osgood (1811–1850): poet, one of the most popular women writers during her time
    • Anna Maria Wells (née Foster; ca. 1794–1868): early American poet and writer for children

Sears family

Sears Family

• Richard Sears (1610–1676): colonist
• David Sears II (1787–1871): philanthropist, merchant, landowner
• Clara Endicott Sears (1863–1960): author, philanthropist
• Mason Sears (1899–1973): politician and ambassador
• Emily Sears: wife of Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.
• John W. Sears (1930–2014): politician

Tarbox family

Tarbox Family

• John Tarbox (1645–1674): colonist
• John K. Tarbox (1838–1887): U.S. congressman
• Increase N. Tarbox (1815–1888): author

Thorndike family

Thorndike Family

• Israel Thorndike (1755–1832): merchant, politician
• Augustus Thorndike (1896–1986): physician
• George Thorndike Angell (1823–1909): lawyer, philanthropist

Tudor family

Tudor Family

• William Tudor (1750–1819): lawyer, politician, founder of the Massachusetts Historical Society
• William Tudor (1779–1830): cofounder of the North American Review and the Boston Athenaeum
• Frederic Tudor (1783–1864): Boston's "Ice King", founder of the Tudor Ice Company
• Tasha Tudor (1915–2008): illustrator and author of children's books

Warren family

• Richard Warren (1578–1628): London merchant, Mayflower passenger
• James Warren (1726–1808): Army general, paymaster of American Army, president of Massachusetts Congress
• Mercy Otis Warren (1728–1814): playwright, historian, pioneer feminist, revolutionary
• Joseph Warren (1741–1775): major-general, hero/martyr of Bunker Hill, president of Massachusetts Congress, sent Paul Revere on his famous midnight ride
• John Warren (1753–1815): founder of Harvard Medical School, surgeon at Bunker Hill, co-founder of the Massachusetts Medical Society
• John Collins Warren (1778–1856): surgeon, gave first public demonstration of surgical anesthesia, a founder of The New England Journal of Medicine, president of the American Medical Association, founding dean of Harvard Medical School, and a founder of Massachusetts General Hospital
• John Collins Warren, Jr. (1842–1947): surgeon and president of the American Surgical Association

Weld family

Weld Family

• Thomas Weld (born c. 1600): colonist, Puritan minister
• William Gordon Weld (1775–1825): merchant
• William Fletcher Weld (1800–1881): merchant, philanthropist
• Ezra Greenleaf Weld (1801–1874): daguerreotypist
• Theodore Dwight Weld (1803–1895): abolitionist
• Stephen Minot Weld (1806–1867): politician, educator
• George Walker Weld (1840–1905): philanthropist
• Stephen Minot Weld, Jr. (1842–1920): Civil War general
• Charles Goddard Weld (1857–1911): philanthropist
• Isabel Weld Perkins (1877–1948): philanthropist
• Philip Saltonstall Weld (1915–1984): World War II commando, environmentalist
• Tuesday Weld (b. 1943): actress
• William Weld (b. 1945): governor of Massachusetts

Wigglesworth family

Wigglesworth Family

• Michael Wigglesworth (1631–1705): colonist, clergyman
  • Edward Wigglesworth (1693–1765): clergyman, educator
• Richard B. Wigglesworth (1891–1960): U.S. congressman

Winthrop family

Winthrop Family

• John Winthrop (1588–1649): governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony
• Lucy Winthrop Downing, mother of diplomat Sir George Downing, 1st Baronet, founder of New York, of Downing Street, London, and ultimately of Downing College, Cambridge UK. Lucy's letter to her brother Governor Winthrop provided the impetus for the founding of Harvard College.
  • John Winthrop the Younger (1606–1676): governor of Connecticut
    • Fitz-John Winthrop (1637–1711): governor of Connecticut
• John Winthrop: married Anne Dudley, granddaughter of Thomas Dudley
  • John Winthrop (1714–1779): acting president of Harvard, pioneer of American science
• Thomas Lindall Winthrop (1760–1841): lieutenant governor of Massachusetts
• Robert Charles Winthrop (1809–1894): lawyer, politician, philanthropist

See also

• Philadelphia Main Line
• Old Philadelphians
• First Families of Virginia
• Colonial families of Maryland
• American gentry
• Dominant minority
• Elitism
• Golden Square Mile
• Preppy
• Socialite
• Upper class
• White Anglo-Saxon Protestant
• Yankee