Charles Apthorp immigrated with his parents to
New England some time after 1698. In 1713 his father died in
Boston. In the city, he served as a
commissary and
paymaster for the
British Army and established a mercantile business.
Import merchant Among the goods imported and/or sold through Apthorp on Merchants Row in Boston were "choice madera wines, ... a parcel of Russia
duck and several sorts of European goods"; "British duck of all sorts"; "choice good sea coal, ... several second hand cables, little the worse for wear, and anchors suitable, with window glass of most sorts, and a parcel of lead and shot"; "a good new
still and
worm of about 600 gallons"; salt; "a parcel of guns, 4-pounders, with carriages and shott, also a parcel of
swivel-guns with shott suitable;" a "well fitted" 50-ton sloop"; and "a
brigantine about 90 tuns, and three years old, now lying at the
Long Wharfe".
Slave trade Apthorp was a "venerable slave importer and one of the richest men in Boston" by 1746. At that time, slave advertisements regularly appeared in the weekly
Boston Gazette. Between 1719 and 1781, there were about 2,300 slave advertisements for about 2,000 enslaved individuals. In the 1730s and 1740s he traded in slaves, posting advertisements in
Boston Gazette, with one stating that he had "a parcel of likely negros just imported". In 1733 Apthorp acted as agent for a man seeking his enslaved servant, Hannah Smyth, who had
run away with a stolen diamond "and has lately been seen here in Boston." He performed a similar role in 1742, authorized to furnish "five pounds reward" for the return of a "negro man named Jack about 35 years old" to his enslaver, Stephen Eastwick. In 1756 Apthorp & Son served as agent for someone looking for an anchor lost on Cape Cod "with two iron clasps on one of the flukes, a solid pine buoy, and buoy-rope."
British government representative Along with
Thomas Hancock, Apthorp represented the British government in its efforts to recruit personnel to
Nova Scotia—ship pilots, bricklayers, carpenters, settlers, etc. He also served as "paymaster and commissary under the British Government of the land and naval forces quartered in Boston". == Personal life ==