Thomas Fisher (158)

Thomas Fisher (6 May 1741–6 September 1810) was a Quaker merchant and a member of the American Philosophical Society via his 1768 election to the American Society. He was born in Lewes, Delaware, but relocated to Philadelphia around age five. In 1756 he produced the first accurate map of the Delaware River, a testament to his marine surveying knowledge that was utilized well into the nineteenth century. He then entered into a mercantile partnership with his father and departed for Europe, bearing specimens from APS member John Bartram. Fisher’s vessel was seized by a Spanish privateer and taken to Bilbao, but he used the opportunity to record his observations and collect additional specimens for Bartram. Within a year he reached London, where he engaged in business and saw the sights: the British Museum, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, and the Tower of London. He also visited the Royal Society with Peter Collinson and toured nearby manufacturing and mining towns. And he saw Holland and France, commenting on the Jardin des Plantes in his travel diary. He returned home to find his firm flourishing, but the American Revolution disturbed this prosperity. Although the Fishers signed the Non-Importation Agreement, they proved steadfastly Loyalist. When they refused to accept Continental currency, they were deemed enemies of the state. Fisher was arrested, and when he refused to take an oath not to aid the British, he was exiled to Virginia. Following his safe return he invested in extensive western landholdings, in a brewery, and in paper mills with his nephews, APS members Thomas and Joshua Gilpin. Fisher was a member of the Union Library Company, a manager of the Silk Society and the Pennsylvania Hospital, and the first treasurer of the Westtown School. His grandson Joshua Francis Fisher was an APS member. (PI)