Dudley Leavitt Pickman (1779–1846) was an American merchant who built one of the great trading firms inSalem, Massachusetts, during the seaport's ascendancy as a trading power in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.[1] Pickman was a partner in the firm Devereux, Pickman & Silsbee and astate senator. Among the wealthiest Salem merchants of his day, Pickman used his ownclipper ships to trade with theFar East in an array of goods ranging from indigo and coffee to pepper and spices,[2] and was one of the state's earliest financiers, backing everything from cotton and woolen mills to railroads to water-generated power plants. Pickman also helped found what is today'sPeabody Essex Museum.
Dudley Leavitt Pickman was born at Salem, Massachusetts, in May 1779, the second son of Salem's chief Naval Officer, William Pickman (1748–1815) and his wife Elizabeth (Leavitt) Pickman, daughter ofDudley Leavitt,[3] an early Congregational minister in Salem, and his wife Mary (Pickering) Leavitt, sister ofUnited States Secretary of StateTimothy Pickering. William Pickman secured his son[4] a position in 1799 as a clerk forChief Customs Collector Major Joseph Hiller.[5] After working briefly for Hiller, Dudley Leavitt Pickman left the Customs Service in 1799 to go to sea as a ship'ssupercargo – business agent for the owner.[6]
Pickman embarked on a merchant's career as a young man. He helped found theEast India Marine Society (today'sPeabody Essex Museum) of Salem in November 1800. (Joining two months prior was the eminent Salem merchantElias Hasket Derby as well asNathaniel Bowditch).[7] In 1804 the East-India Marine Society moved to the Pickman Building on Essex Street, which had been specially fitted for the society.[8]
Early in his career, Pickman traveled toIndia as supercargo on a ship belonging to several Salem merchants. In his diary of the journey,Journal of the Belisarius, Pickman noted the appearance of the British fort atCalcutta: "Fort St. George is a handsome brick fortification. It appears very strong, but is probably too much extended to make as able a defense as might otherwise be done."[9]
Pickman kept journals on several of his other voyages as supercargo and then owner, and as its charter required, these journals were filed with the East-India Marine Society of Salem. These early documents show the vast reach of the large Salem trading houses. In 1799–1800, for instance, Pickman noted that theBelisarius had traveled first to the island ofTenerife, back to Salem, then on toMadras andTranquebar, India, before returning to the Massachusetts port loaded with her bounty.[10] The following year, Pickman kept the journal of the voyage of the shipAnna, captained by Benjamin Swett, which sailed from Boston toSumatra and back in 1801.[7]
Pickman made his early career out of repeated trips on theBelisarius. Before the ship went to pieces in a gale in the Bay ofTunis in April 1810, the 94-foot (29 m) clipper made repeated voyages to India and Sumatra with several captains in command and Pickman acting as supercargo. The clipper ship's voyages prompted Salem cleric Dr.William Bentley to call her "one of the richest ships of our port".[11] (Captain Samuel Skerry, the most renowned of theBelisarius's captains, died at age 36 after being kicked in the stomach by a horse.)
Pickman soon founded his own trading firm. He and his partners owned an array of clipper ships including the brigEndeavor, theMalay, theBorneo,[12] theBelisarius, theHerald,[11] theCoromandel, thePersia, theFriendship and others.[2] The ships traded withIndia,Zanzibar,Madagascar,Sumatra,Java, thePhilippines,Malaya and other far-flung trading ports.
Initially a partner of the Salem trading firm of Stone, Silsbees, Pickman & Allen, Pickman later became one of two partners of the firm of Silsbee & Pickman, one of the largest Salem trading houses, operated byNathaniel Silsbee and Pickman.[13] Pickman made much of his early fortune from trade with India. He later helped finance some Indianfactories as an owner.[14] His firm was so influential that was known in Salem as "The Old East-India Company".[15]
As Pickman's business investments took off, he became an active financier, and owned interests in emerging industries acrossNew England. He was a founding investor in the companies that developed the water power and owned much of the real estate inLowell,Manchester andLawrence. He was also a large stockholder in many cotton and woolen mills in Massachusetts andNew Hampshire, and was a large investor in many early railroad companies.[16] In 1818, Pickman purchased 50shares of theSuffolk Bank, aclearinghouse bank onState Street inBoston.[17]
Pickman was an active merchant, writing to politicians such asHenry Clay to promote his mercantile interests and arguing for the need for protective tariffs.[18] Pickman also frequently corresponded with other powerful merchants and statesmen such asPaine Wingate[19] andSamuel Curwen.[20]
Pickman was heavily involved in nearly all aspects of Salem's municipal and business life. He served withLeverett Saltonstall andNathaniel Bowditch as trustees of the estate of Simon Forrester. A ship captain born in Ireland, Forrester had become one of the pioneers of Salem merchant shipping and became one of Salem's leading merchants and philanthropists.
The large brick mansion built for Pickman by architect Jabez Smith in 1819 at the corner of Chestnut and Pickering Streets in Salem was later known as the Shreve-Little House (and later still as the Baldwin-Lyman House).[21][22] Pickman married on September 6, 1810, Catherine Saunders, daughter of Salem merchant Thomas Saunders[23] and his wife Elizabeth (Elkins) Saunders.[24]
Dudley Leavitt Pickman was a longtime member of Salem's old North Church. His portrait is owned by thePeabody Essex Museum, where it forms part of a collection of the founders of Salem's East India Marine Society in 1799. In theMassachusetts Historical Society is a copy ofWilliam Shakespeare'sTwelfth Night from the library of Dudley Pickman Leavitt – a copy of the first publication in America of theEnglish playwright's work.[25]
Dudley Leavitt Pickman's son William Dudley Pickman continued the family trading enterprises, eventually moving the shipping interests to Boston but retaining a counting house in Salem.[26] William Dudley Pickman married Caroline Silsbee, daughter of Salem merchant Zachariah F. Silsbee. William Dudley Pickman's partner in the Boston-based firm was his son Dudley Leavitt Pickman,[27] who became a fixture in Boston business and social circles, and a large donor of family art and antiques to theBoston Museum of Fine Arts,[28] as well as a trustee of Salem'sPeabody Museum.[29]
Dudley Leavitt Pickman's daughter Elizabeth became the second wife of Salem merchantRichard Saltonstall Rogers, whose first wifeSarah Crowninshield died young.[30] Pickman's daughter Catherine Saunders married Boston merchant Richard S. Fay.[16] One of Pickman's sons, Edward Motley, attendedHarvard Law School, and became a Boston writer.[31]
His son Dudley Leavitt Pickman Jr. attendedNoble and Greenough School,[32] Harvard College, where he was president of theHasty Pudding Club,[33] andHarvard Law School,[34] practiced law in Boston and lived in a 40-room granite mansion, staffed by five servants and designed by architectStanford White at 303Commonwealth Avenue inBoston, as well as inBeverly, Massachusetts.[35] He served as a director for a number of public companies, including a subsidiary ofCalumet and Hecla Mining Company[36] and as one of the first three trustees of theHenry Wadsworth Longfellow House National Park site inCambridge, Massachusetts.[37]
Dudley Leavitt Pickman Jr. continued the family's tradition of making gifts of significant family heirlooms and antiques to the collection of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts,[38] including a teapot by silversmith John Coburn bearing the Pickman familycoat of arms.[39] Born inGeneva, Switzerland, in 1885, Dudley Leavitt Pickman Jr. also became a noted mountaineer and porcelain expert,[40] who published several books on the subject.[41] Along with his friendsHarold Stirling Vanderbilt, Francis Bacon and Frederic Allen, Pickman played the first game ofcontract bridge in its modern form.[42] He married the widow of Boston businessman Alexander Lynde Cochrane.[35]
In its obituary of Dudley Leavitt Pickman Jr.,The New York Times noted the lawyer and author's service as trustee of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts,[43] as well as his avocation as "a noted mountain climber". Pickman, who died at his residence at 38 Beacon Street onBeacon Hill, was 87.[44]
The Pickman family intermarried with other prominent early Salem and Boston families, including that of Joseph Story Fay,[45] theCrowninshields, thePickerings, the Rodmans, the Silsbees, Rogers,[46] Saunders and Motleys and others.[47]
The family also later owned an estate located nearTwo Brothers Rocks inBedford, Massachusetts, so named because the lands were patented by bothMassachusetts Bay Colony governorsJohn Winthrop andThomas Dudley.[48] Dudley Leavitt Pickman and his progeny were descended from both early governors.[49][50]
The Salem merchant Dudley Leavitt Pickman is buried at Salem'sHarmony Grove Cemetery, not far from the grave of his partner, merchant andUnited States Senator fromMassachusettsNathaniel Silsbee. Pickman's tombstone reads: "A successful merchant, distinguished for his sound practical good sense and an inflexible regard to truth and justice."[51]
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