Jonathan Belcher (8 January 1681/8231 August 1757) was a merchant, politician, and slave trader from colonial Massachusetts who served as both governor of Massachusetts Bay and governor of New Hampshire from 1730 to 1741 and governor of New Jersey from 1747 to 1757.
Born into a wealthy Massachusetts merchant family (his father Andrew Belcher was a tavern owner in Cambridge, and his grandfather immigrated to Massachusetts Bay from England), Belcher attended Harvard College and then entered into the family business and local politics. He was instrumental in promoting Samuel Shute as governor of Massachusetts in 1715, and sat on the colony's council, but became disenchanted with Shute over time and eventually joined the populist faction of Elisha Cooke Jr.
After the sudden death of Governor William Burnet in 1729 Belcher successfully acquired the governorships of Massachusetts and New Hampshire. During his tenure, Belcher politically marginalized those who he perceived as opposition and made many powerful enemies in both provinces. In a long-running border dispute between Massachusetts and New Hampshire, Belcher sided with Massachusetts interests despite openly proclaiming neutrality in the matter. It was later discovered that he allowed illegal logging on Crown lands by political allies. His opponents, led by William Shirley and Samuel Waldo, eventually convinced the Board of Trade to replace Belcher (with Shirley in Massachusetts and Benning Wentworth in New Hampshire), and the border dispute was resolved in New Hampshire's favor.
Belcher was appointed governor of New Jersey in 1747 with support from its Quaker community. He unsuccessfully attempted to mediate the partisan conflicts between New Jersey's Quakers and wealthy landowners, and promoted the establishment of the College of New Jersey, now Princeton University. Through most of his tenure as royal governor, Belcher was ill with a progressive nervous disorder, and died in office in 1757. Belchertown, Massachusetts, is named for him.
Early life
Youth and education Jonathan Belcher was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts Bay, on 8 January 1681/82.In the Julian calendar, then in use in England, the year began on 25 March. To avoid confusion with dates in the Gregorian calendar, then in use in other parts of Europe, dates between January and March were often written with both years. Dates in this article before 1752 are in the Julian calendar unless otherwise noted.Hatfield, p. 377 The fifth of seven children, his father Andrew was a merchant who was also one of the first slave traders in colonial New England, and his mother, Sarah (Gilbert) Belcher, was the daughter of a politically well connected Connecticut merchant and Indian trader. His mother died when he was seven, and his father sent him to live with relatives in the country while he expanded his trading business.Batinski, p. 4
Andrew Belcher was highly successful in trade, although some of it was in violation of the Navigation Acts, and some was supposedly conducted with pirates.Batinski, p. 5 However he made his money, he became one of the wealthiest men in Massachusetts in the 1680s and 1690s. To promote the family's status, he sent his son to the Boston Latin School in 1691, and then Harvard College in 1695, where Belcher was listed second (the order of listing being a rough indication of a family's importance) behind Jeremiah Dummer. Belcher and Dummer both went on to political careers in the province, sometimes as allies, but also as opponents. Belcher's five sisters all married into politically or economically prominent families, forging important connections that would further his career.Batinski, pp. 7–8
In January 1705/06 Belcher married Mary Partridge, the daughter of former New Hampshire Lieutenant Governor William Partridge, an occasional business partner of his father's.Batinski, p. 16 The couple had three children (Andrew, Sarah, and Jonathan) before she died in 1736.Batinski, pp. 56, 149 His brother-in-law through this marriage was the painter Nehemiah Partridge.
Agent for his father's commercial empire
Belcher graduated from Harvard at the age of 17, and then entered into his father's business.Batinski, p. 8 The trading empire his father built encompassed trade from the West Indies to Europe, and included shares or outright ownership of more than 15 ships. In the spring of 1704 Belcher's father sent him to London to cultivate business contacts of his own, and to secure military supply contracts.Batinski, p. 9Peterson (2009), p. 333
After forging relations based on his father's letters of introduction in London, Belcher traveled to the Netherlands to do the same with Dutch merchants, and to begin a tour of western Europe. After seeing the sights of Rotterdam and Amsterdam he traveled to Hanover, where he was received by Electress Sophia and met the future King of Great Britain, George, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg.Batinski, pp. 12–13 After calling on the Prussian court in Berlin, he returned to New England.Batinski, pp. 14–16
During these travels he was exposed to a variety of religious practices, but found regular comfort in Christian services most similar to the Calvinist-leaning New England Congregational Church.Batinski, p. 12 He eventually came to see himself as a defender of that faith practice, which permeated his political life.Batinski, p. x
During the years of the War of the Spanish Succession (whose North American theater is also known as Queen Anne's War), Belcher's father was retained as a major supplier to the colonial militia and served as the province's commissary general. Belcher was involved in the management of the family's trading activities.Batinski, pp. 16–17 In 1708, he traveled again to London, where he secured a major contract with The Admiralty. Before returning to Massachusetts he once again traveled to Hanover, where he was well received at court.Batinski, pp. 17–18 The war effort caused economic upheavals in Massachusetts, and the Belchers, who stockpiled grain and other supplies for military use, became a focus for popular discontent when food shortages arose late in the war. The family's warehouses were the targets of mob action, and Belcher was beaten by a mob on one occasion.Batinski, pp. 20–22
His own investments Belcher's merchant interests included the occasional involvement in slave trading.Peterson (2002), p. 14 He is known to have owned slaves as well, ordering them from his friend, Isaac Royall Sr. He presented an enslaved Indian to Electress Sophia on his second visit to Hanover in 1708.Peterson (2002), p. 15 Despite this, he expressed a distaste for slavery, writing in 1739, "We have but few in these parts, and I wish there were less."Allegro, p. 17
In addition to the mercantile trade, the Belcher family also had extensive land holdings in New England. Due to errors in early surveys of the line between Massachusetts and neighboring Connecticut, Massachusetts in the early 1700s gave lands in the central portion of the province to Connecticut as compensation for the survey errors, which were in its favor. When Connecticut auctioned off these "Equivalent Lands" in 1716, Belcher was one of the buyers. The lands he was allocated were eventually incorporated as Belchertown.Hyde, p. 5
Belcher also inherited property from his father that was located in what is now Wallingford and Meriden, Connecticut. He spent a significant amount of money in an unsuccessful attempt to profitably mine the property for metal ores, particularly copper.Gillespie and Curtis, pp. 25–26 In 1714 Belcher expanded his mining interests, acquiring a stake in a mine in Simsbury (now East Granby, Connecticut). In 1735 he reported having invested £15,000 in these ventures,Bishop et al, p. 508 which failed in part because under British law at the time it was illegal to smelt copper in the colonies, necessitating the costly shipment of ores to England.Phelps, pp. 13–14 He eventually established a technically illegal smelting operation. (The Simsbury site, later used by the state as a prison, is now a National Historic Landmark.)Old New-Gate Prison and Copper Mine
Upon the accession of King George I in 1714, Andrew Belcher sent Jonathan to London, seeking to capitalize on the existing connection to the new king.Batinski, p. 24 During this trip Belcher engaged in recruiting for his properties in Connecticut. In addition to hiring an experienced metal refiner in England, he also recruited German miners;Phelps, p. 10Hinman, p. 418 the area near the Simsbury mine became known as "Hanover" as a consequence of their presence.Phelps, p. 14 (Belcher had previously toured mines in the Harz mountains on his first visit to the Hanover.)
Agent and councilor Colonel Elizeus Burges was commissioned as governor of Massachusetts and New Hampshire by the new king.Barry, p. 104 Belcher, along with compatriot Jeremiah Dummer, representing opponents of a land bank proposal that Burges had promised to support, bribed him £1,000 to resign before he left England. Dummer and Belcher were then instrumental in promoting Samuel Shute as an alternative to Burges, believing among other things that he was likely to be well received in New England because he was from a prominent Dissenting family. They also coached Shute on the political situation in the province after he won the appointment.Batinski, p. 25 Shute arrived in Boston on 4 October 1716, where he began a difficult and contentious tenure in office.Barry, p. 105 He signaled his partisanship by first taking up residence with Paul Dudley, son of the last-appointed governor Joseph Dudley and a land bank opponent, rather than Acting Governor William Tailer.Kimball, p. 199
Belcher was elected to the Massachusetts Governor's Council in 1718. During Shute's tenure Belcher was seen as part of a political faction that generally supported the governor.Pencak, p. 78 He was consequently on and off the council several times, blocked by the efforts of populist leader Elisha Cooke Jr. This struggle continued after Shute left the province at the end of 1722 to prosecute his differences with the assembly with the Privy Council in London.Batinski, pp. 40–42 Belcher, however, became increasingly unhappy that Paul Dudley wielded more influence than he did during the administration of William Dummer (who was Dudley's brother-in-law) that followed.Batinski, pp. 42–44Currier, p. 319
When William Burnet arrived in 1728 as governor, Belcher was unexpectedly elected moderator of Boston's town meeting in an election apparently engineered by Cooke. In Burnet's dispute with the assembly over his salary (which exceeded that of Shute in its acrimony and occupied most of Burnet's brief tenure), Cooke and Belcher made common cause over the issue.Batinski, p. 46 Belcher was elected by the assembly as an agent to London to explain the colonial position on the governor's salary, and Cooke helped raise the funds needed for the trip.Batinski, pp. 46–47
Governor of Massachusetts and New Hampshire In 1729, while Belcher was in London, news arrived that Governor Burnet had died quite suddenly. Belcher lobbied for and was awarded the job of governor of both Massachusetts and New Hampshire. This was accomplished in part by bypassing the Board of Trade and appealing directly to higher level ministers in the government, earning him the enmity of the powerful board secretary, Martin Bladen, who opposed his nomination.Batinski, pp. 49–50