Pierre Lorillard II

Pierre Lorillard II
Born (1764-09-07)September 7, 1764
Province of New York
Died May 23, 1843(1843-05-23) (aged 78)
New York, United States
Resting place New York Marble Cemetery[1]
Known for Tobacco manufacturer
Spouse(s) Maria Dorothea Schultz[1]
Children Maria Dorothea (b. 1790)
Catherine (b. 1792)
Pierre III (b. 1796)
Dorothea Anne (b. 1798)
Eleanor Eliza (b. 1801)
Parent(s) Pierre Abraham Lorillard
Catherine Moor
Relatives Pierre Lorillard IV, grandson

Pierre Lorillard II (September 7, 1764 – May 23, 1843), also known as Pierre (Peter) Lorillard Jr., was an American tobacco manufacturer, industrialist, banker, businessman, and real estate tycoon.[2][3]

Early life

1789 advertisement for Peter and George Lorillard's Tobacco & Snuff of the best quality & flavor
Lorillard residence in Tuxedo Park, 1934

Lorillard was born on September 7, 1764 in New York,[3] the son of Pierre Abraham Lorillard (1742–1776) and Catherine Moore.[3]

Career

Lorillard's father, also known as 'Pierre Lorillard I', was the founder of the Lorillard Tobacco Company.[4] Lorillard's father made the first American tobacco fortune by developing a tobacco firm that he started in 1760.[4] Originally the business was a snuff-grinding factory located in a rented house in lower Manhattan. It was called Lorillard's Snuff and Tobacco company and sometimes the name was abbreviated as J. Lorillard.[4] Later the firm moved to a better location on the Bronx River. Lorillard II took over and continued to manage and operate the family business after his father's death in 1776.[3]

Personal life

He married Maria Dorothea Schultz (1770–1834) in 1788 and they had five children:[3] They lived at 521 Broadway in Manhattan.[3]

Death

In May 1843, at the age of 79, Lorillard died, outliving his brothers George and Jacob.[6] A newspaper reporter writing his obituary tried to describe an extremely wealthy American and used the relatively new word, "millionaire".[7][8][9][10]

While the word "millionaire" had been in use in the United Kingdom since at least 1816,[11] apparently it was used for the first time in the United States in 1843 when it was used to describe Lorillard, although he was not the first American to own one million dollars' worth of property.[12][13] While he was one of the wealthiest men in America, he was not the richest at the time, that being John Jacob Astor.[14] Lorillard just happened to have been the first to be called a millionaire in newspapers.[15][16][17][18] Cleveland Amory incorrectly reports that it was in Lorillard's 1843 obituary that the first use of the word "millionaire" appeared in print anywhere.[19][20]

Philip Hone, one-time mayor of New York, wrote about Lorillard in his famous diary,

He was a tobacconist, and his memory will be preserved in the annals of New York by the celebrity of "Lorillard's Snuff and Tobacco." He led people by the nose for the best part of the century, and made his enormous fortune by giving them that to chew which they could not swallow.[7][18]

Social clubs

Lorillard II was a member of several social clubs including the Meadow Brook Hunt Country Club (a fox hunting club) and the Narragansett Gun Club.[21] He often is associated with Tuxedo Park since between 1802 and 1812 he purchased the first tracts of land upon which it later would be developed.[22] The village and the surrounding area were developed in 1886 by his grandson Pierre Lorillard IV as a resort for the socially prominent.

Descendants

His granddaughter was Catharine Lorillard Wolfe (1828–1887), the philanthropist and art collector who gave large amounts of money to institutions such as Grace Episcopal Church and Union College, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.[5]

References

Notes
  1. 1 2 "Lorillard Family Genealogy Forum - NYC, 1831 PETER LORILLARD". Retrieved 2008-07-18.
  2. ↑ Myers, p. 196, Thus, when Pierre Lorillard, a New York snuff maker, banker, and landholder, died in 1843, his fortune of $1,000,000 or so, was considered so unusual that the word "millionaire", newly-coined, was initialized in the rounds of the press.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "A genealogical survey of the peerage of Britain as well as the royal families of Europe". Retrieved 2008-07-18.
  4. 1 2 3 "New York City Department of Parks & Recreation". Retrieved 2008-07-18.
  5. 1 2 The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. New York, NY: J.T. White & Company. 1900. Retrieved 12 September 2016.
  6. ↑ "Reminiscences of New York by an Octogenarian (1816 - 1860)". Retrieved 2008-07-19.
  7. 1 2 Larrabee, p. 239
  8. ↑ History in Asphalt: The Origin of Bronx Street and Place Names, page 129. Retrieved 2008-07-18.
  9. ↑ Wealth and Poverty in America: A Reader By Dalton Conley, page 145. Retrieved 2008-07-18.
  10. ↑ le.com/books?id=-JIFAAAAMAAJ&q=millionaire+Peter+lorillard&dq=millionaire+Peter+lorillard&pgis=1 Dynamics of Community Change: The Case of Long Island's Declining "Gold Coast" By Dennis P. Sobin , page 34 Check |url= value (help). Retrieved 2008-07-18.
  11. ↑ "Millionaire (n and adj)" (available online to subscribers but also available in print). Oxford English Dictionary. Retrieved 2008-07-20. 1816 BYRON Let. 23 June (1976) V. 80 He is still worth at least 50-000 pds{em}being what is called here [sc. Evian] a ‘Millionaire’ that is in Francs & such Lilliputian coinage. 1826 B. DISRAELI Vivian Grey I. ix, Were I the son of a Millionaire, or a noble, I might have all.
  12. ↑ Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates: Buildings and Projects 1993-1998 By Jerry E. Patterson, page 119. Retrieved 2008-07-18.
  13. ↑ The Story of Alexander Brown & Sons: Issued on the One Hundred and Twenty, page 25. Retrieved 2008-07-18.
  14. ↑ "A Classification of American Wealth". Retrieved 2008-07-18.
  15. ↑ One-night Stands with American History: Odd, Amusing, and Little-known Incidents. Retrieved 2008-07-18.
  16. ↑ The American Wind Band: A Cultural History By Richard K. Hanksen, page 218. Retrieved 2008-07-18.
  17. ↑ The Plungers and the Peacocks By Dana Lee Thomas, page 71. Retrieved 2008-07-18.
  18. 1 2 Their Gilded Cage: The Jekyll Island Club Members By Richard Jay Hutto, page 100. Retrieved 2008-07-18.
  19. ↑ Wein, p. 134 According to Cleveland Amory, it was within Pieere Lorillard's newspaper obituary that the word "millionaire" had first appeared in print.
  20. ↑ Wecter, p. 76 Peter Lorillard, the snuff and cigar-maker, died in 1843 and the newspapers coined the word "millionaire" to denote such affluence.
  21. ↑ Whitney, p. 318
  22. ↑ Dictionary of American Biography, American Council of Learned Societies 1933, p. 412
Sources
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