Joseph F. Sinnott

Joseph F. Sinnott was the fourth of fourteen children to be born to a family with both military and seafaring roots in County Donegal, Ireland in 1837. Sinnott attended the Lord George Hill School in Gweedore, Donegal Ireland. With the intent of joining his grandmother and his aunts in South Carolina, Sinnott emigrated America in 1854 at the age of 17 However, when he arrived in Philadelphia he learned that his grandmother and one of his aunts had perished at the hands yellow-fever and decided to remain in Philadelphia. Subsequently, Sinnott was hired by custom-house brokers Watkins & Weaver who he worked for until he found employment as an assistant bookkeeper with John Gibson, a fellow Irish immigrant at John Gibson's Son & Co., a whiskey distillery, in 1856. == Military history ==

Sinnott enlisted in Pennsylvania's Seventeenth infantry regiment on April 25th, 1861 as a private. The Seventeenth was deployed to Maryland as part of the Union army's effort to control the Baltimore area, which was crucial for defense and control of access to Washington, D.C. Sinnott's unit would assume the role of securing access to DC via Maryland movement. The unit was ordered back to Philadelphia and disbanded. Sinnott was officially mustered out of the Seventeenth on August 7, 1861. == Business ==

John Gibson's Son & Co. was established in 1854, when John Gibson became disappointed with the limited amount of whiskey he was able to buy from Monongahela distilleries for his growing business. Thus, in 1856, he started his own distillery and produced the first whiskey in 1857 at Gibsonton. Gibsonton was not only where the distilling took place but was also a town and home for the employees. The main offices of John Gibson's Son & Co would remain in Philadelphia, however, many other office branches were established in various locations such as Boston, Louisiana, Georgia. Sinnott left the army to oversee a new branch of John Gibson's Son & Co in Boston, Massachusetts in 1861. == Family life ==

Nine years after his arrival in the United States, in 1863, Joseph F. Sinnott married Annie Eliza Rogers at Philadelphia. The couple had nine children together, six boys and three girls. • Joseph Edward Sinnott (April 13, 1864 – July 21, 1882) • Mary Elizabeth Sinnott (March 26, 1866 – 1919) • Henry Gibson Sinnott (November 3, 1867– February 14, 1899) • Annie Leonora Sinnott Devereux (December 7, 1869 – 1944) • Clinton Rogers Sinnott (July 12, 1872 – May 21, 1943) • James Frederick Sinnott (December 14, 1873 – May 7, 1908) • John Sinnott (December 13, 1875 – December 10, 1944) • Clarence Coffin Sinnott (October 6, 1878 – 1938) • Eliza Lorea Sinnott (November 21, 1880 – June 1, 1882) Sinnott's younger brother, James Patrick Sinnott (1848–1925), also immigrated and became a Reverend Monsignor and rector of St. Charles Borromeo. == Religious and political views ==

Sinnott was publicly against prohibition. By the end of the 1880s he was generously funding the anti-prohibition campaign in Pennsylvania to thwart passage of laws that could have threatened his business. Sinnott was a devout Catholic as was evident with his service as a member of the St. Charles Theological Seminary and the Catholic Historical Society. In life, Sinnott donated to and actively worked with organizations for the advancement of the Catholic church, and in his will, he left a hefty sum to multiple Catholic charities. Sinnott also took care to keep ties with his homeland, supporting famine stricken families and less fortunate individuals back in Ireland and, as a member of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, he provided help for his fellow Irishmen who lacked the good fortune that he had upon arriving in America == Honors ==

Sinnott was a representative of the whiskey trade at the Commercial Exchange in 1867, and protested a law on the storage of whiskey which liquormen deemed unjust and a detriment to their businesses. Sinnott was also a member of the Pennsylvania Reserve Association, which paid respects to General Meade in 1872 as well as secretary to a committee with other transportation elites that supported the Transatlantic Line. Sinnott was not only on the board of directors of the Philadelphia Catholic Gentlemen's Club, but was also appointed to a committee of Wine and Liquor Men to raise money for the Centennial, and was nominated as a member of the selection committee of the New York Heralds campaign for famine relief in Ireland in 1880. == Death ==

Joseph F. Sinnott died in June 1906, presumably of colon cancer. Sinnott left behind an estate valued at more than two million dollars. == References ==