Boston Brahmin

A Boston Brahmin is a member of Boston's traditional upper class. Members of this class are characterized by their highly discreet and inconspicuous lifestyle. Members of Boston's Brahmin class form an integral part of the historic core of the East Coast establishment, and are often associated with the distinctive Boston Brahmin accent, Harvard University, and traditional Anglo-American customs and clothing. Descendents of the earliest English colonists, such as those who came to America on the Mayflower or the Arbella, are often considered to be the most representative of the Boston Brahmins.

The term was coined by the physician and writer Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., in an 1860 article in the Atlantic Monthly. The term Brahmin refers to the highest ranking caste of people in the traditional Hindu system of castes. In the United States, it has been applied to the old, wealthy New England families of British Protestant origin which were influential in the development of American institutions and culture. The term effectively underscores the strong conviction of the New England gentry that they were a people set apart by destiny to guide the American experiment as their ancestors had played a leading role in founding it. The term also serves to illustrate the erudite and exclusive nature of the New England gentry as perceived by outsiders, and may also refer to their interest in Eastern religions, fostered perhaps by the impact in the 19th century of the transcendentalist writings of New England literary icons as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman, and the enlightened appeal of Universalist Unitarian movements of the same period.

§Characteristics

The nature of the Brahmins is hinted at by the doggerel "Boston Toast" by Holy Cross alumnus John Collins Bossidy.

And this is good old Boston,

The home of the bean and the cod,

Where the Lowells talk only to Cabots,

And the Cabots talk only to God.

While some 19th-century Brahmin families of large fortune were of bourgeois origin, others were of aristocratic origin. The new families were often the first to seek, in typically British fashion, suitable marriage alliances with those old aristocratic New England families that were descended from landowners in England to elevate and cement their social standing. The Winthrops, Dudleys, Saltonstalls, Winslows and Lymans (descended from English magistrates and gentry) were, by and large, happy with this arrangement. All of Boston's "Brahmin elite," therefore, maintained the received culture of the old English gentry including cultivating the personal excellence that they imagined maintained the distinction between gentlemen and freemen, and between women and ladies. They saw it as their duty to maintain what they defined as high standards of excellence, duty, and restraint. Cultivated, urbane, and dignified, a Boston Brahmin was supposed to be the very essence of enlightened aristocracy. The ideal Brahmin was not only wealthy, but displayed what was considered suitable personal virtues and character traits. The Brahmin was expected to maintain the customary English reserve in his dress, manner, and deportment, cultivate the arts, support charities such as hospitals and colleges, and assume the role of community leader. Although the ideal called on him to transcend commonplace business values, in practice many found the thrill of economic success quite attractive. The Brahmins warned each other against "avarice" and insisted upon "personal responsibility". Scandal and divorce were unacceptable. The total system was buttressed by the strong extended family ties present in Boston society. Young men attended the same prep schools and colleges, and private clubs and heirs married heiresses. Family not only served as an economic asset, but also as a means of moral restraint. Most belong to the Unitarian or Episcopal churches, although some were Congregationalists or Methodists. Politically they were successively Federalists, Whigs, and Republicans. They were marked by their manners and once distinctive elocution, the Boston Brahmin accent, a version of the New England accent. Their distinctive Anglo-American manner of dress has been much imitated and is the foundation of the style now informally known as preppy. In proper Boston society "who" has always mattered more than "how much" and although they have, for the most part, relinquished their historic role as leaders of Massachusetts government, they are still to be found on boards of financial institutions, schools, and arts organizations quietly setting the example of disinterested public service in the manner of their distinguished forebears.

§Brahmin families

Many of the Brahmin families trace their ancestry back to the original 17th- and 18th-century colonial ruling class consisting of Massachusetts Governors and magistrates, Harvard Presidents, distinguished clergy and fellows of the Royal Society of London (a leading scientific body) while others entered New England aristocratic society during the 19th century with their profits from commerce and trade often marrying into established Brahmin families such as the Welds, Saltonstalls, Lymans, Sargents, Emersons, Winslows, Warrens and Winthrops. A few families are listed here.

§Adams

Adams family

• Samuel Adams (1722â€"1803): Founding Father
• John Adams (1735â€"1826): Founding Father and second President of the United States, husband of Abigail Smith Adams (1744â€"1818)
  • John Quincy Adams (1767â€"1848): sixth President of the United States
    • Charles Francis Adams, Sr. (1807â€"1886): Ambassador, U.S. Congressman
      • Charles Francis Adams, Jr. (1835â€"1915): Civil War general
      • John Quincy Adams II (1833â€"1894): lawyer, politician
        • Charles Francis Adams III (1866â€"1954): U.S. Secretary of the Navy
          • Charles Francis Adams IV (1910â€"1999): industrialist, first president of Raytheon
      • Henry Brooks Adams (1838â€"1918): author
      • Brooks Adams (1848â€"1927): historian
      • Ivers Whitney Adams (1838â€"1914): founder of the oldest continuously playing professional baseball team, the Boston Red Stockings

§Amory

Amory family

• John Amory Lowell (1798â€"1881): merchant
• Thomas Coffin Amory (1812â€"1889): lawyer, author
• Thomas Jonathan Coffin Amory (1828-1864): Civil War general
• Ernest Amory Codman (1869â€"1940): surgeon
• Cleveland Amory (1917â€"1998): author

§Appleton

Appleton family

Patrilineal line:

• Daniel Appleton (1785â€"1849), publisher
• Frances Appleton (died 1861), the wife of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• George Swett Appleton (1821â€"1878), publisher
• Jane Means Appleton Pierce (1806â€"1863), wife of U.S. President Franklin Pierce, was First Lady of the United States from 1853 to 1857
• Jesse Appleton (1772â€"1819), second president of Bowdoin College
• John Appleton (1816â€"1864), assistant Secretary of State, diplomat, U.S. Representative
• John Appleton, Chief Justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court
• John F. Appleton, lawyer and Union colonel in the American Civil War
• John James Appleton (1789â€"1864), ambassador
• Nathan Appleton (1771â€"1861), U.S. Representative and merchant
• Nathaniel Appleton (1693â€"1784), Congregational minister
• Samuel Appleton (1625â€"1696), military and government leader in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Province of Massachusetts Bay
• Samuel Appleton (1766â€"1853), merchant and philanthropist
• Thomas Gold Appleton (1812â€"1884), writer and art patron
• William Appleton (1786â€"1862), U.S. Representative
• William Henry Appleton (1814â€"1899), publisher
• William Sumner Appleton (1874â€"1947), philanthropist

Other notable relatives

• Thomas Storrow Brown (1803â€"1888), journalist, writer, orator, and revolutionary in Lower Canada (present-day Quebec)
• Edward Augustus Holyoke (1728â€"1829), educator and physician
• Alice Mary Longfellow (1850â€"1928), philanthropist and preservationist
• Ernest Wadsworth Longfellow (1845â€"1921), artist
• Alpheus Spring Packard (1839â€"1905), entomologist and palaeontologist
• William Alfred Packard (1830â€"1909), classical scholar
• Charles Storrow Williams (1827â€"?), Director of Railroad Transportation for the Confederate States of America
• Edward H. Williams (1824â€"1899), physician and railroad executive

§Bacon

Bacon family

• Robert Bacon (1860â€"1919): U.S. Secretary of State
• Robert L. Bacon (1884â€"1938): U.S. Congressman
• Gaspar G. Bacon (1886â€"1947): politician
• Gaspar G. Bacon, Jr. (1914â€"1943): actor

§Boylston

Boylston family

• Thomas Boylston (b. 1644): Doctor, Family Patriarch
• Zabdiel Boylston (1679â€"1766): Physician
• Ward Nicholas Boylston (1747â€"1828) Benefactor, Harvard University

§Bradlee

Bradlee family

• Nathan Bradley I: Earliest known member born in America in Dorchester, Boston, Mass. in 1631
• Samuel Bradlee: Constable of Dorchester, Massachusetts
  • Nathaniel Bradlee: Boston Tea Party participant; member of Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association
  • Josiah Bradlee I: Boston Tea Party participant m. Hannah Putnam
    • Josiah Bradlee III, millionaire, (Harvard) m. Alice Crowninsheld
    • Frederick Josiah Bradlee I: (Harvard); Director of the Boston Bank
      • Frederick Josiah Bradlee, Jr. (Harvard-1915): Parole Officer of the Massachusetts State Prisons m. Chevaliere Josephine de Gersdorff
        • Frederick Josiah Bradlee III: Broadway Actor, Author
        • Chevalier Benjamin Crowninshield Bradlee (1921â€"2014), (Harvard-1942): Fmr. Chief Executive Editor of the Washington Post
  • Samuel Bradlee, Jr. Lieutenant Colonel during the American Revolutionary War
  • Thomas Bradlee: Boston Tea Party participant; member of Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics Association; Member of the St. Andrews Lodge of Freemasons
  • David Bradlee: Boston Tea Party participant; Captain in the U.S. Continental Army, Member of the St. Andrews Lodge of Freemasons
  • Sarah Bradlee: "Mother of the Boston Tea Party"

§Cabot

§Chaffee/Chafee

Chaffee family, originally of Hingham, Massachusetts

• Thomas Chaffee (1610â€"1683), businessman and landowner
• Jonathon Chaffee (1678â€"1766), businessman and landowner
• Matthew Chaffee (1657â€"1723), Boston landowner
• Adna Romanza Chaffee (1842â€"1914): U.S. General
• Adna R. Chaffee, Jr. (1884â€"1941): U.S. General
• Zechariah Chafee (1885â€"1957): philosopher, civil libertarian
• John Chafee (1922â€"1999): U.S. Senator
• Lincoln Chafee (b. 1953): former U.S. Senator, current Rhode Island governor

§Choate

Choate family

• Rufus Choate (1799â€"1859): U.S. Senator
• George C. S. Choate (1827â€"1896): founder of Choate Sanitarium, Pleasantville, New York
• Joseph Hodges Choate (1832â€"1917): lawyer, diplomat
• William Gardner Choate (1830â€"1920): U.S. Federal judge, founder Choate Rosemary Hall
• Sarah Choate Sears (1858â€"1935): art patron
• Robert B. Choate, Jr. (1924â€"2009): businessman
• Elizabeth Choate Spykman (1896â€"1965): writer

§Codman

Codman family

• Ogden Codman, Jr. (1863â€"1951): architect

§Coffin

Coffin family, originally of Newbury and Nantucket

• Tristram Coffin (1604â€"1681): colonist, original owner of Nantucket
• William Coffin (1699â€"1775): merchant, co-founder of Trinity Church
• Sir Isaac Coffin (1759â€"1839): naval officer
• Charles E. Coffin (1841â€"1912): industrialist, U.S. Congressman
• Charles A. Coffin (1844â€"1926): industrialist, co-founder of General Electric
• Henry Coffin Nevins (1843â€"1892): industrialist
• John Coffin Jones, Sr. (1750-1820): Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives
  • John Coffin Jones, Jr. (1796â€"1861): U.S. Ambassador
• Thomas Coffin Amory (1812â€"1889): lawyer, author
• Thomas Jonathan Coffin Amory (1828â€"1864): Civil War general

§Coolidge

Coolidge family

• Calvin Coolidge (1872â€"1933): President of the United States
  • John Coolidge (1906â€"2000): businessman
• Archibald Cary Coolidge (1866â€"1928): educator
• John Coolidge Adams (b. 1947): composer
• John Gardner Coolidge (1863â€"1936): U.S. Ambassador
• Charles A. Coolidge (1844â€"1926): U.S. Army general

§Cooper

• John Cooper (1609â€"1669): Colonist
• Samuel Cooper (1725â€"1783): Clergyman
• Samuel D. Cooper, Jr. (1750â€"1824): Revolutionary
• Samuel D. Cooper III (1778â€"1853): Trade merchant
• Priscilla Cooper Tyler (1816â€"1889): First Lady of the United States
• Theodore Cooper (1839â€"1919): Civil engineer
• Frederic Taber Cooper (1864â€"1937): Writer

§Cushing

Cushing family, originally of Hingham, Massachusetts

• Caleb Cushing (1800â€"1879): U.S. Congressman and Attorney General
• John Perkins Cushing (1787â€"1862): China Trade Merchant, Investor
• Thomas Cushing (1725â€"1788): statesman, revolutionary
• William Cushing (1732â€"1810): U.S. Supreme Court justice
• Harvey Cushing (1869â€"1939): neurosurgeon

Descendant by marriage:

• Albert Cushing Read (1887â€"1967): naval officer

§Crowninshield

Crowninshield family

• Johann Casper Richter von Kronenscheldt (Colonists)
• Jacob Crowninshield (1770â€"1808): U.S. Congressman
  • Arent S. Crowninshield (1843â€"1908): U.S. Navy Admiral
• Caspar Crowninshield (1837â€"1897): Union Army General
• Benjamin William Crowninshield (1837â€"1892): Union Army Colonel
• Frederic Crowninshield (1845â€"1918): First President of the National Society of Mural Painters
• Benjamin Williams Crowninshield (1772â€"1851): 5th U.S. Secretary of Navy
• Frank Crowninshield (1872â€"1947): Creator and editor of Vanity Fair
• Bowdin Bradlee Crowninshield (1867-1948): American Naval Architect

Descendant by marriage:

• William Crowninshield Endicott (1826â€"1900): 5th U.S. Secretary of War
• Frederick Josiah Bradlee, Jr. (1892â€"1970) Parole Officer of the Massachusetts State Prisons
• Benjamin Crowninshield Bradlee (1921-2014): Editor-in-chief of the Washington Post
• Quinn Crowninshield Bradlee, (b. 1982): Founder and CEO of FriendsOfQuinn.com

§Dana

Dana family

• Richard Dana (1699â€"1772): colonial Boston politician
• Francis Dana (1743â€"1811): revolutionary
• Richard Henry Dana, Sr. (1787â€"1879): lawyer, author
• Richard Henry Dana, Jr. (1815â€"1882): lawyer, author (Two Years Before the Mast)

§Delano

Delano family

• Columbus Delano (1809â€"1896): U.S. Secretary of the Interior
• Jane Delano (1862â€"1919): founder of the American Red Cross Nursing Service
• Paul Delano (1745â€"1842): naval officer
• Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882â€"1945): President of the United States

§Dudley

Dudleyâ€"Winthrop family

• Thomas Dudley (1576â€"1653): Governor of Massachusetts, a founder of Harvard College
• Anne Dudley Bradstreet (1612â€"1672): first American poet, wife of Royal Governor Simon Bradstreet
• Joseph Dudley (1647â€"1720): Royal Governor of Massachusetts, President of the Dominion of New England, Chief Justice of New York, Member of Parliament, Lt. Governor of the Isle of Wight
• Paul Dudley (1675â€"1751): Chief Justice of Massachusetts, Member of the Royal Society, Founder of the Dudleian Lectures at Harvard
• Paul Dudley Sargent, (1745â€"1828) Army Colonel and Revolutionary war hero
• Dudley Saltonstall, (1738â€"1796) Naval Commodore during the revolution and successful privateer

§Dwight

New England Dwight family

• Timothy Dwight IV (1752â€"1817): President of Yale University
• Joseph Dwight (1703â€"1765): Lawyer, French and Indian War veteran
• James Dwight Dana (1813â€"1895): Geologist

§Eliot

Eliot family

• Charles William Eliot (1834â€"1926): President of Harvard University
  • Charles Eliot (1859â€"1897): landscape architect
• William Greenleaf Eliot (1811â€"1887): an American educator, Unitarian minister, and civic leader
  • Henry Ware Eliot (1843â€"1919) an American industrialist and philanthropist, co-founder Washington University
    • T.S. Eliot (1888â€"1965): poet
• Samuel Eliot Morison (1887â€"1976): Renowned maritime author

Descendant by marriage:

• Charles Eliot Norton (1827â€"1908) author

§Emerson

Emerson family

• Rev. William Emerson (1769â€"1811): clergyman & Ruth Haskins Emerson
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803â€"1882): poet & Lydia Jackson Emerson

§Endicott

Endicott family

Salem:

• William Crowninshield Endicott (1826â€"1900): U.S. Secretary of War

Dedham:

• Augustus Bradford Endicott (1818â€"1910): politician
  • • Philip Endicott Young (1885â€"1955): industrialist
  • Henry Bradford Endicott (1853â€"1920): industrialist
    • Henry Wendell Endicott (1880â€"1954)

§Forbes

Forbes family

• John Murray Forbes (1813â€"1898): industrialist
• John Forbes Kerry (b. 1943): United States Secretary of State, Senator from Massachusetts (1985â€"2013)
• Elliot Forbes (1917â€"2006): Conductor and Musicologist
• Robert Bennet Forbes (1804â€"1889): sea captain, China merchant, ship owner, writer

§Gardner

Gardner family, originally of Essex county

• Samuel Pickering Gardner (1767-1843): merchant
• John Lowell Gardner (1808â€"1884): merchant
• John Lowell Gardner II (1837â€"1898): merchant
• Augustus P. Gardner (1865â€"1918): U.S. Congressman

§Healey / Dall

• Mark Healey (1791â€"1872): originally of New Hampshire, merchant and first president of the Merchant's Bank
  • Caroline Wells Healey (1822â€"1912), writer, feminist, and abolitionist
  • Charles Henry Appleton Dall (1816â€"1886), first Unitarian minister to India
    • William Healey Dall (1845â€"1912), malacologist, paleontologist, and explorer of Alaska

§Holmes

Holmes family

• Abiel Holmes (1763â€"1837): clergyman
  • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809â€"1894): doctor, author
    • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841â€"1935): U.S. Supreme Court justice

§Jackson

Jackson family

• Edward Jackson (1708â€"1757): colonist & Dorothy Quincy Jackson
  • Jonathan Jackson (1743â€"1810): merchant, revolutionary & Hannah Tracy Jackson
    • Charles Jackson (1775â€"1855): Massachusetts Supreme Court justice
      • Amelia Lee Jackson, who married Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. above
    • Patrick Tracy Jackson (1780â€"1847): co-founder of the Boston Manufacturing Company
    • Hannah Jackson: wife of Francis Cabot Lowell
• Lydia Jackson: wife of Ralph Waldo Emerson

§Lawrence

Lawrence family

• Samuel Lawrence (d. 1827): Revolutionary
  • Amos Lawrence (1786â€"1852): merchant
    • Amos Adams Lawrence (1814â€"1886): abolitionist
      • William Lawrence (1850â€"1941): Episcopalian Bishop
        • William Appleton Lawrence (1889â€"1963): Episcopalian Bishop
        • Frederic C. Lawrence (1899â€"1989): Episcopalian Bishop
  • Abbott Lawrence (1792â€"1855): U.S. Congressman, founder of Lawrence, Massachusetts
  • Luther Lawrence (d. 1839): politician

Descendant by marriage: Abbott Lawrence Lowell (1856â€"1943): President of Harvard University

§Lodge

Lodge family

• John Ellerton Lodge, married Anna Cabot
  • Henry Cabot Lodge (1850â€"1924): U.S. Senator
    • George Cabot Lodge (1873â€"1909): poet
      • Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. (1902â€"1985): U.S. Senator, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations
        • George Cabot Lodge II (b. 1927): Harvard Business School professor, 1962 U.S. Senate candidate from Massachusetts against Edward M. Kennedy
        • Henry Sears Lodge (b. 1930)
      • John Davis Lodge (1903â€"1985): 79th Governor of Connecticut, U.S. Ambassador

§Lowell

Lowell family

§Lyman

• Richard Lyman (1580-1640) a founder of Hartford, Connecticut, a cousin of Lord Mayor of London Sir John Lyman of the Lyman Baronets of England
• Roswell Lyman China trade merchant, had an interest in The Ann & Hope
• Theodore Lyman (1753-1839) China trade merchant, Commissioned Samuel McIntire to build one of New England's finest country houses, The Vale.
• Theodore Lyman II (1792 â€" 1849) Brigadier General of militia, Massachusetts State Congressman, Mayor of Boston
• Theodore Lyman III (1833 - 1897) was a natural scientist, aide-de-camp to Major General Meade during the American Civil War, and United States Congressman from Massachusetts.
• Theodore Lyman IV (1874 - 1954) Director Jefferson Physics Lab, Harvard, He was the eponym of the Lyman series of spectral lines. The crater Lyman on the far side of the Moon is named after him as is the Lyman Physics Building at Harvard
• George Williams Lyman (1786-1880) developed textile mills, director of the Boston and Lowell Railroad and the Columbian Bank, president Massachusetts Hospital Life Insurance Company. His first wife was Elizabeth Gray Otis, the daughter of Harrison Gray Otis (U.S. Senator and Mayor of Boston) and Sally Foster Otis, prominent Bostonians who built a noted Federal-style mansion still standing.
  • • • Arthur T. Lyman (1832-1915), and his sisters Sarah (Mrs. Philip H. Sears) and Lydia (Mrs. Robert Treat Paine )
        • Arthur T. Lyman, Jr. (1861-1933) married Susan Cabot. Director and officer of textile manufacturing companies and the Massachusetts Life Insurance Company. Board member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Waltham Hospital. He was active in politics as president of the Democratic Club of Massachusetts, chairman of the State Democratic Committee.

§Minot

Minot Family

• Charles Sedgwick Minot (1852â€"1914): anatomist
• George Richards Minot (1885â€"1950): winner of the Nobel Prize in Medicine
• Henry Davis Minot (1859â€"1890): ornithologist
• Susan Minot (b. 1956): author

§Norcross

Norcross family, original settlers of Watertown, MA

• Otis Norcross (1811â€"1882): Mayor of Boston
• Eleanor Norcross (1854â€"1923): artist

§Otis

Otis family,

• James Otis, Jr. (1725â€"1783): revolutionary
• Mercy Otis Warren (1728â€"1814): playwright, revolutionary
• Samuel Allyne Otis (1740â€"1814): politician
• Harrison Gray Otis (1765â€"1848): U.S. Senator, Mayor of Boston

§Parkman

Parkman family

• Samuel Parkman (1751â€"1824): investor
• George Parkman (1790â€"1849): philanthropist, victim of a highly publicized murder
• Francis Parkman Jr. (1823â€"1893): historian

§Peabody

Peabody family

• Catherine Endicott Peabody (1808â€"1833)
• Elizabeth Palmer Peabody (1804â€"1894), American educator who opened the first English-language kindergarten in the United States
• Endicott Peabody (1857â€"1944), American Episcopal priest and founder of the Groton School for Boys
• Endicott "Chubb" Peabody (1920â€"1997), Governor of Massachusetts
• George Peabody (1795â€"1869), entrepreneur and philanthropist who founded the House of Morgan and the Peabody Institute
• Joseph Peabody (1757â€"1844), merchant, shipowner, and philanthropist whose company sailed Clipper Ships in the Old China Trade from its base in Salem, Massachusetts
• Mary Tyler Peabody Mann (1806â€"1887), American author
• Nathaniel Peabody (1774â€"1855)
• Richard R. Peabody (1892â€"1936), author of The Common Sense of Drinking, a major influence on Alcoholics Anonymous founder Bill Wilson
• Sophia Amelia Peabody Hawthorne (1809â€"1871), painter, illustrator, and wife of American author Nathaniel Hawthorne

§Perkins

Perkins family

• James Perkins (1761â€"1822): Founder of Boston Athenaeum, pioneer of China Trade, merchant, philanthropist
• Thomas Handasyd Perkins (1764â€"1854): merchant, philanthropist
• Charles Perkins (1823-1886): Art historian, philanthropist, founder of the Museum of Fine Arts
• Edward Perkins (1856-1905): Constitutional lawyer
• Maxwell Perkins (1884â€"1947): literary editor of Hemingway, Faulkner, Fitzgerald

§Phillips

Phillips family

• Samuel Phillips, Jr. (1752â€"1802): politician, founder of Phillips Academy
• Dr. John Phillips (1719â€"1795): educator, founder of Phillips Exeter Academy
• Wendell Phillips (1811â€"1884): abolitionist

§Putnam

Putnam family

• James Putnam (1725â€"1789): last Attorney General in Massachusetts before American Revolution; judge and politician in New Brunswick
• James Putnam (1756â€"1838): Canadian politician
• Israel Putnam (1718â€"1790): American army general during the American Revolutionary War
• William Lowell Putnam (1861â€"1924) and Elizabeth Lowell Putnam
  • George P. Putnam (1887â€"1950): publisher, explorer, husband of Amelia Earhart
  • Katherine L. Putnam (1890â€"1983): wife of Harvey Hollister Bundy
  • Roger Lowell Putnam (1893â€"1972): politician, businessman

§Quincy

Quincy family

• Edmund Quincy (1602â€"1636): settled in Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1633
• Josiah Quincy II (1744â€"1775): lawyer, revolutionary
  • Josiah Quincy III (1772â€"1864): U.S. Congressman, Mayor of Boston, President of Harvard
• Dorothy Quincy Hancock (wife of John Hancock)
• Abigail Smith Adams (1744â€"1818):, wife of John Adams
  • John Quincy Adams (1767â€"1848): President of the United States

§Rice

Rice family, originally of Sudbury, MA

• Deacon Edmund Rice (1594-1663): colonist
• Alexander Hamilton Rice (1818â€"1895): industrialist, Mayor of Boston, Governor of Massachusetts, U.S. Congressman
  • Alexander Hamilton Rice, Jr. (1875â€"1956): physician, geographer and explorer
• Americus Vespucius Rice (1835â€"1904): general, U.S. Congressman
• Edmund Rice (1842â€"1906): U.S. Army General, Medal of Honor recipient
• Edmund Rice (1819â€"1889): U.S. Congressman
• Henry Mower Rice (1816â€"1894): U.S. Senator
• Luther Rice (1783â€"1836): Baptist clergyman, missionary to India
• Thomas Rice (1768â€"1854): U.S. Congressman
• William North Rice (1845â€"1928): geologist, educator
• William Marsh Rice (1816â€"1900), American businessman, founder of Rice University
• William Whitney Rice (1826â€"1896): U.S. Congressman

§Saltonstall

Saltonstall family

• Leverett Saltonstall I (1783â€"1845): politician, educator
• Leverett Saltonstall (1892â€"1979): U.S. Senator
  • William L. Saltonstall (1927â€"2009): politician
• Philip Saltonstall Weld (1915â€"1984): WWII commando, environmentalist

§Sargent

• Colonel Epes Sargent (1690â€"1762) was a colonel of militia before the Revolution and a justice of the general session court for more than 30 years.
  • Paul Dudley Sargent (1745â€"1828) Revolutionary war hero, one of the founding overseers of Bowdoin College
    • Harrison Tweed (1885â€"1969) was an American lawyer and civic leader.
      • Tweed Roosevelt (1942â€") is the great-grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt
  • John Sargent (Loyalist) (1750â€"1824), Loyalist officer during the American Revolution
    • Winthrop Sargent (1753â€"1820) Patriot, governor, politician, and writer; and a member of the Federalist party
    • Judith Sargent Murray (1751â€"1820) Feminist, essayist, playwright, and poet her home is Sargent House Museum
  • Daniel Sargent Sr (1730-1806) Wealthy merchant, owned Sargent's Wharf in Boston
    • Daniel Sargent (1764â€"1842) Merchant, politician
      • Daniel Sargent Curtis (1825-1908) Lawyer, banker, Trustee of the BPL, owner of Palazzo Barbaro
    • Henry Sargent (1770â€"1845) American painter and military man
    • Henry Winthrop Sargent (1810â€"1882) American horticulturist and landscape gardener.
    • Lucius Manlius Sargent (1786â€"1867) was an American author, antiquarian, and temperance advocate.
      • Horace Binney Sargent (1821-1908) General Civil War, politician.
    • John Singer Sargent (1856â€"1925) was an American artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation"
    • Charles Sprague Sargent (1841â€"1927) an American botanist, first director of Harvard University's Arnold Arboretum
    • Winthrop Sargent Gilman (1808â€"1884) was head of the banking house of Gilman, Son & Co. in New York City
    • Epes Sargent (1813â€"1880) American editor, poet and playwright
    • Francis W. Sargent (1915â€"1998) was the 64th Governor of Massachusetts
    • Chevalier Benjamin Crowninshield Bradlee (1921â€"2014), (Harvard-1942): Fmr. Editor of The Washington Post
    • Frances Sargent Osgood (1811â€"1850) was an American poet and one of the most popular women writers during her time
    • Anna Maria Wells (née Foster; ca. 1794â€"1868) was an early American poet and writer for children

§Sears

Sears family

• Richard Sears (1610â€"1676): colonist
• David Sears II (1787-1871): philanthropist, merchant, landowner
• Clara Endicott Sears (1863â€"1960): author, philanthropist
• Mason Sears (1899â€"1973): politician and ambassador
• Emily Sears: wife of Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.
• John W. Sears (1930â€"2014), politician

§Tarbox

Tarbox Academic and Political Family.

• John Tarbox (1645â€"1674): colonist
• John K. Tarbox (1838â€"1887) U.S. Representative
• Increase N. Tarbox (1815â€"1888): author

§Thorndike

Thorndike family

• Israel Thorndike (1755â€"1832): merchant, politician
• Augustus Thorndike (1896â€"1986): physician
• George Thorndike Angell (1823â€"1909): lawyer, philanthropist

§Tudor

Tudor family

• William Tudor (1750â€"1819): lawyer, politician, founder of the Massachusetts Historical Society
• William Tudor (1779â€"1830): cofounder of the North American Review and the Boston Athenaeum
• Frederic Tudor (1783â€"1864): Boston's "Ice King," founder of the Tudor Ice Company
• Marie Tudor, poet

§Warren

• Richard Warren (1578â€"1628), London merchant, Mayflower passenger
• James Warren (1726â€"1808), Army General, paymaster of American Army, president of Massachusetts Congress
• Mercy Otis Warren (1728â€"1814), playwright, historian, pioneer feminist, revolutionary
• Dr. Joseph Warren (1741â€"1775), Major-General, hero/martyr of Bunker Hill, president of Massachusetts Congress, sent Paul Revere on his famous midnight ride
• Dr. John Warren (1753â€"1815), founder Harvard Medical School, surgeon at Bunker Hill, co-founder Massachusetts Medical Society,
• Dr. John Collins Warren (1778â€"1856), surgeon, gave first public demonstration of surgical anesthesia, a founder of New England Journal of Medicine, president of the American Medical Association. founding Dean of Harvard Medical School and a founder of Massachusetts General Hospital
• John Collins Warren, Jr. (1842â€"1947), American surgeon and president of the American Surgical Association

§Weld

Weld family

• Thomas Weld (born c. 1600): colonist, Puritan minister
• William Gordon Weld (1775â€"1825): merchant
• William Fletcher Weld (1800â€"1881): merchant, philanthropist
• Ezra Greenleaf Weld (1801â€"1874): daguerreotypist
• Theodore Dwight Weld (1803â€"1895): abolitionist
• Stephen Minot Weld (1806â€"1867): politician, educator
• George Walker Weld (1840â€"1905): philanthropist
• Stephen Minot Weld Jr. (1842â€"1920): Civil War General
• Charles Goddard Weld (1857â€"1911): philanthropist
• Isabel Weld Perkins (1877â€"1948): philanthropist
• Philip Saltonstall Weld (1915â€"1984): WWII commando, environmentalist
• Tuesday Weld, (b. 1943): actress
• William Weld, (b. 1945): Governor of Massachusetts

§Wigglesworth

Wigglesworth Family

• Michael Wigglesworth (1631â€"1705): colonist, clergyman
  • Edward Wigglesworth (1693â€"1765): clergyman, educator
• Richard B. Wigglesworth (1891â€"1960): U.S. Congressman

§Winthrop

Winthrop family

• John Winthrop (1588â€"1649): Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony
• Lucy Winthrop Downing, mother of diplomat Sir George Downing, 1st Baronet, founder of New York, of Downing Street, London, and ultimately of Downing College, Cambridge UK. Lucy's letter to her brother Governnor Winthrop provided the impetus for the founding of Harvard College.
  • John Winthrop, the Younger (1606â€"1676): Governor of Connecticut
    • Fitz-John Winthrop (1637â€"1711): Governor of Connecticut
• John Winthrop, who married Anne Dudley, granddaughter of Thomas Dudley
• Paul Dudley Sargent (1745â€"1828) Revolutionary war hero, Brigadier General, founder of Bowdoin College
  • John Winthrop (1714â€"1779): acting president of Harvard, pioneer of American science
• Thomas Lindall Winthrop (1760â€"1841): Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts
• Robert Charles Winthrop (1809â€"1894): lawyer, politician, philanthropist
• Winthrop Rockefeller (1912 â€" 1973): Governor of Arkansas, philanthropist

§See also

• First Families of Virginia
• Colonial families of Maryland
• Golden Square Mile
• Elitism
• Ethnic elite
• Preppy
• Socialite
• Upper class
• White Anglo-Saxon Protestant
• Yankee

§References

§External links

• Slate.com: "What's a Boston Brahmin?"
• Celebrate Boston - Origin of the term Brahmin
• Cornell University Making of America: "The Professor's Story: Chapter I â€" The Brahmin Caste of New England", Atlantic Monthly, Jan 1860, p. 91
• Federal Judicial Center Biographical Directory of Federal Judges
• Massachusetts Historical Society
• Footage of two Brahmins conversing