John Rhea (131)

Election date: 1768 (Elected to the revived American Philosophical Society.)
APS Office(s): John Rhea (1730?–25 March 1773) was a merchant and manufacturer, and a member of the American Philosophical Society, elected in 1768. While his origins are unknown, he is believed to have immigrated to Philadelphia from Ulster, Ireland, or perhaps from Scotland. He began his career as a merchant in partnership with Peter Wikoff. Following a trip abroad for his health, Rhea founded a new trading firm in Philadelphia with his brother David. Rhea opposed the Stamp Act and Townshend Duties. He was a manager of the Silk Society and was among the Philadelphia speculators granted lands in Nova Scotia in 1765. He was also a donor to the Pennsylvania Hospital and the Presbyterian Ministers’ Fund. Keen to advance American improvements, he experimented with planting Chinese vetches in 1769, and he served on the APS committees that raised funds to survey a proposed Delaware-Chesapeake canal and saw the first volume of the Society’s Transactions through the press. In 1772, financial troubles prompted a new venture: a potash factory. Local soap manufacturers vigorously protested this enterprise, however, arguing in a broadside that Rhea would monopolize the wood ashes they used and raise the price of soap in the process. Rhea defended the factory in a broadside of his own, arguing that the local economy could support it and that it would be beneficial to the colony as a whole. The enterprise was a success, but Rhea did not live to see it. He died suddenly in 1773. (PI)

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