Samuel Rowland Fisher

Samuel Rowland Fisher (November 6, 1745 – May 6,1834) wasa prominent Philadelphia merchant involved in transatlantic trade. Heowned a large shipping line that ran between London and Philadelphia,but was exiled and imprisoned during the RevolutionaryWar because of his Quaker beliefs.

Early years

Fisher was born in Lewes, Delaware, into a Quaker family withhistoric roots, growing up in Philadelphia, PA. His father, Joshua Fisher,was the grandson of John Fisher who came to America on boardthe "Welcome" with William Penn. His mother, Sarah Rowland, was thegranddaughter of Mary Harworth, an eloquent Friends] minister who had alsoarrived on the "Welcome". Fisher's father Joshua moved thefamily to Philadelphia in 1746 and established a home and large mercantilebusiness at 110 S Front St., soon afterstarting the first packet line of ships to sail regularlybetween Philadelphia and London. Fisher's father also purchased acountry estate north of the city overlooking the Schuylkill River from theeast, and built a house there in 1753 called "The Cliffs".

Mercantile Business

When Fisher and his four brothers came of age, their father named the business"Joshua Fisher & Sons" (1762-1783), and engaged the brothers in all aspects ofit. Customers were able to order items such as porcelain, silverware,
brass pulls for dressers, and every other imaginabletype of merchandise from a detailed catalog. The business prospered becausecustomers could receive reasonably priced goods within weeks. Fishereventually took over most of the business from his father and brothers,continuing for the rest of his life to run the packet line to London.He traveled widely in America and England (1767-8) andmade notes on the manufacture of textile, glassware, and ceramicitems for inclusion in the catalog.

=Revolutionary War and Family=

As many Quakers did during the Revolution, Fisher and his family tried tomaintain a neutral position with respect to the war with England, but he firmlyopposed belligerency in the revolutionary cause,possibly because much of the family business, which involved in trade withLondon, came to a halt during the war years. He and his family suffered becauseof this. Much of the family's inventory of merchandise was commandeered by themilitary to support the revolutionary cause, but they were not fully reimbursedfor it.

In 1777, Fisher and his brothers refused to deliver their firm's businessrecords to the authorities, and since they were Quakers they refused toswear an oath of allegiance. Fisher, along with his brothers Thomas andMeirs were exiled to Winchester, Virginia along with several other
Quakers, and kept under house arrest for a year. Although they were treatedsomewhat harshly they survived without severe illness, but their brother-in-lawThomas Gilpin and another in the group died. They were allowed out of their housesto dine elsewhere and received mail and guests. They were eventually pardoned andallowed to return to Philadelphia by order of George Washington and the
Congress after the British evacuated.

However, Fisher, who by then had begun a course towards eccentricity, continuedto show opposition to the revolutionary cause, and was arrested in 1779 on thecharge of being a Tory on the basis of a letter he sent to his brotherJabez Maud in New York. He refused to recognize the authority of the courtand was imprisoned in downtown Philadelphia for 2 years. He kept careful journalsof his trips and prison terms which have been well preserved. He had disdainfor the excitement seen in Philadelphia from the Continental Army led by GeorgeWashington. Many Quakers and even some of his family opposed his strongstand against authority and the revolutionary fervor, and at one point he wasthreatened to be "read out of Meeting" (disowned).

=Business after the Revolution=

After the war, Fisher resumed his transatlantic business, made new businessdeals with firms in England (1783-4) and continued his prosperous business.He travelled to Bristol, England, Nottingham, Manchester, Sheffield,
Warrington, and elsewhere to visit textile mills and othermanufacturers, comparing their quality and prices. The English could no longerappropriate cheap raw materials from the colonies and sell back the finishedgoods at exorbitant prices as they had before the Revolution, but Fisher's business with reasonable prices made profits on many goods that were not yet manufactured in North America.

Fisher often traded local agricultural products for the Englishmanufactured goods. Once, Fisher had shipped the yearly cargo of flaxseed to
England just before the embargo preceding the war of 1812. As a resultother ship cargoes of flaxseed could not get through and the price Fisher received on his flaxseed in England rose higher than he thought was justified. From this concern, he gave the excess profits to start negro schools in Delaware.

implicity

Fisher was a typical Quaker merchant in that he was very successful becauseof his scrupulous honesty, but carried this much farther than others, oftentrying to import a moral lesson. On one occasion, because hatchets in his storewere not selling well, he tried to sell them at a reduced price, but refused tosell to a customer who wanted hatchets to fight the Indians.He had doubts about proper conduct in both business and personal affairs, andfound solace in following strict discipline. He became friends with Elias Hicks who was a leading Quaker travelling preacher teaching simplicityand discipline.

Marriage and Family Life

Fisher, oddly, was cared for by his sister Esther (Hetty) until his 48th year,when he married Hannah Rodman of Newport, RI, in a hastily arrangedceremony in Newport. He had made her acquaintance on hisnumerous trips, and had corresponded with her from Philadelphia, PA
Philadelphia. She was tall and beautiful, and because Quakers at thattime were restricted, as were many other denominations, to marrying "within the
Meeting", her choices for marrying in the Newport area werelimited. On May 20, 1793 Fisher traveled on stagecoach to New York,then took a boat to Newport, proposing to Hannah immediately upon arrival theRodman house. She at first agreed, but in June when his relativeswere delayed, she had second thoughts. They were finally married on June 6,and Fisher brought her back to Philadelphia to live at hishome at 110 S. Front Street. Fisher was active in the local Quaker Meeting, became aligned with the abolitionist cause. His wife Hannah became skilled at preaching.

The family with daughters Sarah and Deborah, and son Thomas continued to liveat 110 S. Front Street along the waterfront of Philadelphia. They becamefriends with the Whartons who lived in a house nearby. The Fishers spent summers at The Cliffs which perched high above the Schuylkill River was cooler and more free of mosquitoes than their city dwelling, and theWharton estate was also nearby. Fisher's daughter Deborah married William Wharton, and their son was Joseph Wharton, a prominent industrialist who founded the Wharton School of Business.

References

* W. Ross Yates, "Joseph Wharton: Quaker Industrial Pioneer", 1987, Lehigh University Press

* "Diary Of A Revolutionary Prisoner: Extracts from the Diary of Samuel Rowland Fisher", The Prison Journal, Vol. 55, No. 2, 48-57 (1975)

* [http://www2.hsp.org/collections/manuscripts/f/fisher2094.htm Fisher Family Papers, 1761-1889] , Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

* [http://www.hsp.org/files/findingaid2028fox.pdf Fox Family Papers, 1755-1969] , Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

* "Journal of Samuel Rowland Fisher of Philadelphia, 1779-1781", Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol 41, 1917.

* "Exiles in Virginia: with observations on the conduct of the Society of Friends during the Revolutionary War", by Thomas Gilpin, Philadelphia, 1848.

* "The romance of the two Hannahs: a paper read before The Society", August 20, 1923, by Anna Wharton Morris. Newport, R.I.: Newport Historical Society, 1923.

* Charles F. Hummel, [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0084-0416(1964)1%3C188%3ASRF%22OE%3E2.0.CO%3B2-A "Samuel Rowland Fisher's 'Catalogue of English Hardware'"] , "Winterthur Portfolio", Vol. 1, (1964), pp. 188-197

* "The Early Modern Atlantic Economy: Essays on Transatlantic Enterprise", by John J. MacCusker, Kenneth Morgan. Cambridge University Press, 2001.

* [http://franklinpapers.org/franklin/framedNames.jsp?ssn=001-19-5673 Description of Joshua Fisher & Sons] in the Franklin papers,

* Thomas M. Doerflinger, "A Vigorous Spirit of Enterprise: Merchants and Economic Development in Revolutionary Philadelphia", 1986, UNC Press

* Article in The Evening Bulletin, November 22, 1971, on the plans to convert the Cliffs to an historic farm.