Introduction: In this article, Melissa Davenport Berry writes about descendants of the merchants and mariners who prospered in Salem, Massachusetts. Melissa is a genealogist who has a website, americana-archives.com, and a Facebook group, New England Family Genealogy and History.

Today I begin my series on the descendants of maritime legends from Salem, Massachusetts. The painting below, by George Ropes Jr., shows Salem’s Crowninshield Wharf, built in 1802 by the prominent Crowninshield family.

Inserted into this painting are portraits of five leading citizens of Salem (from left to right): Elizabeth (Crowninshield) Derby; Elias Hasket Derby; Elizabeth Crowninshield (Derby) West; Captain Nathaniel West; and Nathaniel Bowditch.

Let’s explore the scions of shipping magnate Elias Hasket Derby (1739-1799), son of Richard (1712-1783) and Mary (Hodges) Derby.

Elias married Elizabeth Crowninshield (1736-1799) in 1761, the sister of another shipping magnate, George Crowninshield – who earlier had married Elias’s sister, Mary Derby. These marriages strengthened the alliance between their families and consolidated their fortunes.

Honoring Kin-Ship to Mariner

Elias and Elizabeth had seven children who all lived to adulthood and left many descendants. In 1989, several of them met up in Salem to celebrate the birthdate of their ancestor Elias Hasket Derby. The Boston Herald covered the event and included a feature photo of Derby descendants.

The photo caption reads:

Of the Ancient Mariner: Decked out in Salem yesterday in 18th-century garb to honor their ancestor, Elias Hasket Derby, are (from left): Bill Fuchs, Margaret Sabin, Hazel Trembley, and Sheila Cooke-Kayser.

The article reads:

Elias Hasket Derby, an 18^th-century Salem merchant who made millions of dollars by gambling on unknown overseas routes, was remembered yesterday by his descendants, many of them from marriages arranged through Derby’s business alliances.

More than 100 of Derby’s descendants gathered in the historic North Shore port to mark the 250th anniversary of his birth [16 August 1739].

They planned to honor the most successful mariner of his time with, among other things, a reenactment of the return voyage of his boat, the Astrea, to Salem from China in 1790 with a cargo of tea.

Here is a sketch of Astrea by Nathaniel Bowdich (1773-1838) of Salem, who also published Journal of the Astrea (Ship).

Nathaniel Bowditch has familial ties to the Derby lineage through multiple marriages. His first wife, Elizabeth (Boardman) Bowditch, is the daughter of Mary (Hodges) Boardman, who is the niece of Mary (Hodges) Derby – the mother of Elias. Additionally, Elizabeth’s sister, Mary Boardman, married Benjamin Williams Crowninshield, son of George and Mary (Derby) Crowninshield. Nathaniel’s second wife is Mary Hodges Ingersoll – but more on that in a later story.

Back to the Boston Herald article:

Derby, nicknamed “King Derby” because of his 6-foot height and commanding stature, was a legend that Nathaniel Hawthorne, a port surveyor at the Salem Custom House from 1846-49, referred to in his introduction to The Scarlet Letter.

Using money made from the privateering of British ships during the Revolutionary War, Derby made part of his 90-ship fleet the first American ships to sail to India, Russia, the Philippines, Arabia, Burma, and some other areas considered vital to the deep-water trade of Salem.

He was perhaps America’s first millionaire.

The amazing thing is that Derby, who lived from 1739-1799, apparently never went to sea. He learned the maritime business, begun by his father Richard, on dry land at the age of 15, studying bookkeeping and naval architecture. [When Derby’s real estate  was appraised in 1805 it was worth $963,000, equivalent in purchasing power to about $26,589,335 today.]

Below is a retouched copy of a portrait of Elias’s father, Richard Derby, painted by Henry Sargent in 1790. It is a graphic reproduction taken by the Essex Institute in the home of his descendant Roger Derby of New Canaan, Connecticut.

More from the Boston Herald article:

The family gathering brings together people who may have been unaware they were related until this week.

“I’ve located lots of my second cousins and third cousins,” said Harry West, a physicist from Livermore, Calif. [West published a genealogy of the family in 1997 entitled Descendants of Henry West, 1629-1703, of Salem, Massachusetts, with Some Collateral Lines of Interest: The Genealogy and History of the West Family of Salem from the Early Days of the Puritan Commonwealth to the Present.]

Joining West, 63, in Salem yesterday were: John Merz, a retired Air Force major from Oklahoma; his aunt, Martha Derby Doscher; and his sisters, June Clark of Falston, Md., and Susan Cook of Phoenix, Ariz.

West said he wasn’t even aware of his link to Derby until about five years ago.

“Before that all I knew was that there was a privateer named Nathaniel West,” a Salem shipper who married Derby’s eldest daughter, Elizabeth, in 1783, said West.

Derby was also known for having one blue and one brown eye, a trait West said he doubted had been passed along.

This branch of the Derby line are descendants of Elizabeth Crowninshield Derby (1762-1814), daughter of Elias Hasket and Elizabeth (Crowninshield) Derby, who married Captain Nathaniel West (1756-1851).

More on this line will be covered in my next story. Stay tuned for sensational sea adventures and scandalous spousal dramas!

The ship Mount Vernon was built at the eastern end of Derby Street in Salem in 1798 by Retire Becket for Elias Hasket Derby and proved to be the last commercial venture of that great merchant.

The Order of the Star and Sail, a new lineage society, is making waves! The captain of this new organization is Michael R. Denney, the Acting Historian General and Elder General of the Society of Mayflower Descendants.

Create a free account at GenealogyBank for 7 days to start your journey and discover the stories your ancestors left behind.

Note on the header image: scene along the Salem, Massachusetts, waterfront, c. 1770–1780, by Balthasar Friedrich Leizelt. Credit: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Related Articles:

• Salem Uproar over Dilapidated Tombs
• Salem Uproar over Dilapidated Tombs, Part II
• Salem Uproar over Dilapidated Tombs, Part III
• Salem Uproar over Dilapidated Tombs, Part IV