William F. Sturgis

William F. Sturgis (February 25, 1782 - October 21, 1863) was a Boston merchant in the China trade.

Biography

Sturgis was born in Barnstable, Massachusetts, to Hannah Mills and William E. Sturgis, a ship master and lineal descendant from Edward Sturgis of Yarmouth, Massachusetts, the first Sturgis in America (arrived 1630).

In 1796, he joined the counting house of his uncle Russell Sturgis (1750–1826), and less than two years later became connected with James and Thomas Handasyd Perkins's fur trade between the Pacific Northwest coast and China.

Upon his father's death in 1797, he went to sea to support the family as assistant trader on the "Eliza", then as chief mate of the "Ulysses". He then served under Captain Charles Derby on the "Caroline" until Derby died and Sturgis took command. In 1804 the "Caroline" sailed from the Columbia River to Kaigahnee, just south of Prince of Wales Island, Alaska, acquiring some 2,500 sea otter skins that netted $73,034.

In 1809, his ship the "Atahualpa", owned by Theodore Lyman, was attacked by Chinese pirates while moored at Macau Roads. Sturgis managed to get the ship underway and fought off the pirates using four small cannon he had brought on board against the wishes of the ship's owner. Using these, they managed to fight long enough to sail within range of the protective guns of the harbor, and the pirates were captured, their commander Apootsae later being tortured to death by the Mandarin authorities. Sturgis had been prepared to blow up the ship if the pirates caught them in order to save the crew and passengers from being tortured. Lyman reportedly chastised Sturgis for having violated his instructions by bringing the cannon on the voyage.

In 1810 he returned to Boston and married Elizabeth M. Davis (with whom he had one son and five daughters) and formed a trading partnership with John Bryant as Bryant, Sturgis & Co.. From 1810-1850 more than half of the trade carried on between the Pacific Northwest coast and China was under their direction, including substantial parts of the California hide trade.

Sturgis was a longtime member of the Massachusetts House and Senate, a member and sometime president of the Boston Marine Society, and a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society. He donated his house to be the Barnstable public library, and his papers are collected there in the Sturgis Library Archives.

One of his descendants donated the Tanglewood estate to the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

References

* [http://www.sturgislibrary.org/resources/special/archives/sturgis.php William F. Sturgis biography]
* [http://genealogyfinds.com/documents/bostonsturgis.htm Atahualpa incident] , description taken from "Other Merchants and Sea Captains of Old Boston", State Street Trust Company, Boston, Massachusetts, 1919.

Further reading

* Sturgis, William, "Memoir of the Hon. William Sturgis", Charles Greely Loring, ed., John Wilson & Sons, Boston, 1864.
* Sturgis, William, "The Journal of William Sturgis: The Eighteenth-Century Memoirs of a Sailor", S.W. Jackman, ed., ISBN 0-919462-54-5.
* [http://www.masshist.org/findingaids/doc.cfm?fa=fa0253 Hooper-Sturgis papers] at the Massachusetts Historical Society