


His wealth was increased considerably, from cotton brought up from the slave plantations of Alabama, and Mississippi. Many descendants of the first Bates members lived modestly off of their inheritances until Elkanah Bates began heavily investing all over the state of Massachusetts serving some clients in Maine, and starting his own cotton factory. Familial expansion Įdward Bates, sitting next to Abraham Lincoln at the First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation His brothers Frederick and James Woodson also served in politics as Governor of Missouri, and Senator respectively. At the Whig National Convention in 1852, Bates was considered for nomination as vice-president on the party ticket, and he led on the first ballot before losing on the second ballot to William Alexander Graham. In 1850, President Millard Fillmore asked Bates to serve as U.S.
The bates family free#
While a slaveholder, during this time, Bates became interested in the case of the slave Polly Berry, who in 1843 gained her freedom decades after having been held illegally in the free state of Illinois for several months. He became a prominent member of the Whig Party during the 1840s, where his political philosophy closely resembled that of Henry Clay. He next was appointed as the new state's Attorney General. He wrote the preamble to the state constitution-an honor that later influenced his fight against the radical Missouri Constitution of 1865. Bates's first foray into politics came in 1820, with election as a member of the state's constitutional convention. When older, he attended Charlotte Hall Military Academy in Maryland.

Įdward Bates born in Goochland County, Virginia, on the Bates' Belmont plantation, he was privately tutored at home as a boy. Alfred Bates fought in the American Revolution as a Captain, and later became a brigadier general for the Massachusetts State Militia. Deeply religious the family founded numerous (some now defunct) religious institutions and centers. The Bates family starts in England but moved to and from Massachusetts periodically, with certain members being born abroad and others being born in New England. Alden's daughter Ruth married John Bass, and were survived by Benjamin, Williams and eventually Hannah Copeland, who began the lineage with the Bates family. The family assumed their family crest upon their marriage. The family can trace their ancestors to John Alden who was crew member on the historic 1620 voyage of the Pilgrim ship Mayflower, through the union of Elkanah Bates (1779 - 1841) and Hannah Copeland. Benjamin Bates III, went on to become a prominent merchant of food and working tools. Using the considerable sum bestowed upon to him by his father he lived a life of pure excess and began collecting art to soothe his restlessness. Little is written about the first Benjamin Bates, and he is most noted for being survived by Benjamin Bates II, is often noted as the "revival patriarch" as his life and pursuits landed him in the elite Hellfire Club hosted by Francis Dashwood. His rapid ascension through the ranks of the law landed him high paying commissions and high-profile cases, eventually leading him into banking. The prominence of the Bates family began with its patriarch, Benjamin Bates I (1651–1710), who worked his way into the legal world as a young boy, in Edinburgh, Scotland, and soon gained a reputation for winning arguments and debates among the most senior councilmen in his town. They have lived there since at least the 13th Century. The Bates family most likely originated from Lydd in Kent, England. The family is related to the prominent political Gilbert family and indirectly to the Alden family, the first family on the Mayflower. The family includes various merchants, politicians, inventors, clergymen, artists, and socialites. House of Representatives for Arkansas, and a prominent textile tycoon who founded the Bates Manufacturing Company and Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. Attorney General serving under Abraham Lincoln, the second Governor of Missouri, a member of the U.S. The Bates family is an American political and banking family from Maine and Massachusetts whose members include a prominent member of the prestigious Hell Fire Club, the 26th U.S. The grave of Benjamin Bates IV located in the Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
