{{Short description|American sea merchant, opium smuggler and philanthropist}} {{Infobox person | name = John Perkins Cushing | image = | caption = | birth_date = {{birth date|1787|04|22}} | birth_place = Boston, Massachusetts | death_date = {{death date and age|1862|04|12|1787|04|22}} | death_place = Belmont, Massachusetts | parents = Robert Cushing<br>Ann Perkins Maynard | spouse = {{marriage|Mary Louisa Gardiner<br>|1830|1862|reason=}} | children = 5, including Thomas | relatives = John S. J. Gardiner (father-in-law) }} '''John Perkins Cushing''' (April 22, 1787 – April 12, 1862),<ref name="amdigital"/> called "Ku-Shing" by the Chinese, was a wealthy American sea merchant, opium smuggler, and philanthropist. His sixty-foot pilot schooner, the ''Sylph'', won the first recorded American yacht race in 1832.<ref name="Boston"> {{cite book|last=Eastman|first=Ralph M.|date=1956|title=Pilots and pilot boats of Boston Harbor|url=https://archive.org/details/pilotspilotboats00east/page/46/mode/2up?q=Lillie|location=Boston, Massachusetts|publisher=Second Bank-State Street Trust Company|page=28}}</ref> The town of Belmont, Massachusetts is named after his estate.<ref name="harvard">{{cite web|title=Cushing, John Perkins, 1787-1862.John Perkins Cushing business records, 1832-1882 (inclusive): A Finding Aid|url=https://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~bak00115|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100715144650/http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~bak00115|url-status=dead|archive-date=15 July 2010|website=oasis.lib.harvard.edu|publisher=Harvard University Library|accessdate=20 June 2017}}</ref>
==Early life== Cushing was born in Boston, Massachusetts to Robert Cushing and his wife, Ann Perkins Maynard.<ref name="Shavit1990">{{cite book|last1=Shavit|first1=David|title=The United States in Asia: A Historical Dictionary|date=1990|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=9780313267888|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IWdZTaJdc6UC&pg=PA117|accessdate=20 June 2017|language=en}}</ref> His father's Cushing ancestor had emigrated to Hingham, Massachusetts, during the early years of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Cushing's sister, Nancy, later married Henry Higginson (1781-1839).<ref name="Kienholz2008">{{cite book|last1=Kienholz|first1=M.|title=Opium Traders and Their Worlds-Volume One: A Revisionist Exposé of the World's Greatest Opium Traders|date=2008|publisher=iUniverse|isbn=9780595910786|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2YlO9qraI4MC&pg=PT276|accessdate=20 June 2017|language=en}}</ref>
When his mother died of smallpox, Cushing was raised by his uncle, slave and opium trader Thomas Handasyd Perkins (1764–1854).<ref name="frick">{{cite web|title=Archives related to: Perkins, Thomas Handasyd, 1764-1854|url=http://research.frick.org/directoryweb/browserecord2.php?-action=browse&-recid=6340|website=research.frick.org|publisher=Frick Collection|accessdate=20 June 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190126220737/http://research.frick.org/directoryweb/browserecord2.php?-action=browse&-recid=6340|archive-date=26 January 2019|url-status=dead}}</ref>
Cushing was reportedly very fond of the Perkins family and very often brought them house-warming gifts such as large boxes of the finest available white sugar. He was said to have spent a lot of time at their house, often playing backgammon with William Appleton or Colonel Perkins.<ref name="Kienholz2008"/>
==Career== In 1803, at age 16, Cushing sailed for China to become clerk in his uncle's counting house.<ref name="Downs2014">{{cite book|last1=Downs|first1=Jacques M.|last2=Grant, Jr.|first2=Frederic D.|title=The Golden Ghetto: The American Commercial Community at Canton and the Shaping of American China Policy, 1784–1844|date=2014|publisher=Hong Kong University Press|isbn=9789888139095|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Tw4wBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA367|accessdate=20 June 2017|language=en}}</ref> The head of the firm in China soon fell ill and died at sea. Thus, when Cushing arrived in China, he found himself Perkins & Company's sole agent, remaining there for nearly 30 years.<ref name="amdigital"/>
Cushing was said to have managed the affairs of the firm skillfully and was soon taken into partnership. Under Cushing, the firm of Perkins & Company was formally established in Canton in 1806. They imported and traded rice during a famine in China and during the War of 1812, the family loaned their money out, at an interest rate of 18 percent, to other merchants in Canton. When the fur trade diminished they began searching for a substitute for what had once been the foundation of Boston's China trade. The firm focused on opium and, by the 1820s, Cushing was known as the most influential of all the foreigners in Canton, having struck up a close relationship with the merchant Howqua, who at his death in 1843 was said to be the richest man in the world.<ref name="amdigital"/>
In 1820, Cushing brought on his cousin, Thomas Tunno Forbes, to train for the business. Forbes, however, died in 1827 before assuming control of the firm. Cushing, eager for retirement and lacking a suitable replacement, made arrangements to dissolve Perkins & Company by a consolidation with Russell & Co. in 1830. Russell & Co. had been created by China trader Samuel Russell in 1824. In 1830, Cushing returned to Boston with Eastern manners and manservants.<ref name="amdigital"/>
==Personal life== Shortly after his return to Boston in 1830, he married Mary Louisa Gardiner (1799–1862), the only daughter of the Rev. John Sylvester John Gardiner (1765–1830) of Trinity Church, Boston. It was rumored at the time that there was much disappointment among the young ladies of Boston, who, as someone expressed it, "beset him like bumblebees about a lump of sugar." Together, they were the parents of five children, including:<ref name="amdigital"/><ref name="Letters1827">{{cite book|title=Letters Received by John Perkins Cushing|date=1827|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6ZMcnQAACAAJ|accessdate=20 June 2017|language=en}}</ref>
* John Gardiner Cushing (1834–1881), who married Susan Prescott Dexter<ref name="amdigital"/> * Robert Maynard Cushing (1836–1907), who married Olivia Donaldson Dulany (1839–1906)<ref name="amdigital">{{cite web|title=Letters from the Children of John Perkins Cushing, and to His Wife Marie Louise Cushing - China, America and the Pacific - Adam Matthew Digital|url=http://www.cap.amdigital.co.uk/Documents/Details/Letters-from-the-Children-of-John-Perkins-Cushing--and-to-His-Wife-Marie-Louise-Cushing/BA_L144_1_4|website=www.cap.amdigital.co.uk|publisher=China, America and the Pacific {{!}} Trade & Cultural Exchange|accessdate=20 June 2017}}</ref> * Thomas Forbes Cushing (1838–1902)<ref name="amdigital"/> * William Howard Cushing (d. 1851), who died aged 11.<ref name="amdigital"/> * Mary Louisa "Isa" Cushing (1845-1894) married Edward Darley Boit her daughters are shown in the painting The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit
Cushing died in Belmont, Massachusetts on April 12, 1862.<ref name="JPCobit1862">{{cite news|title=GENERAL NEWS. {{!}} Mr. JOHN P. CUSHING|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1862/04/16/news/general-news.html|accessdate=26 October 2017|work=The New York Times|date=16 April 1862}}</ref> His obituary in ''The New York Times'' stated that: "He was so noted for his liberality to the poor that their pertinacity drove him from Boston, where he once had his residence."<ref name="JPCobit1862"/>
===Descendants=== Through his eldest son, he was the grandfather of Alice Linzee Cushing (1869–1947). Through his son, Robert, he was the grandfather of Grafton Dulany Cushing (1864–1939), Howard Gardiner Cushing (1869–1916), Olivia Cushing Andersen (1871–1917). His great-grandson was Alexander Cochrane Cushing (1914–2006).<ref name="ACCObit2006">{{cite news|last1=Martin|first1=Douglas|title=Alexander Cushing, 92, Dies; Turned Squaw Valley Into World-Class Skiing Destination|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/22/obituaries/22cushing.html?pagewanted=print|accessdate=20 June 2017|work=The New York Times|date=22 August 2006}}</ref>
===Residence=== Cushing built himself a handsome mansion on Summer Street, acquired a splendid {{convert|200|acre|km2|adj=on}} estate in Watertown named "Bellmont" (now part of Belmont, Massachusetts which is named after his estate), and erected one of the finest conservatories in New England.<ref name="Emmet1997"/> His house was one of the finest and most comfortable of any in or near Boston. It was a double one-—a house within a house-—and thus warm in winter and cool in summer. Its spacious grounds and beautiful gardens were open to the public, and thousands of visitors went out there each year.<ref name="Emmet1997">{{cite book|last1=Emmet|first1=Alan|title=So Fine a Prospect: Historic New England Gardens|date=1997|publisher=UPNE|isbn=9780874517743|pages=57–68|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NmZ0jt3nHhsC&pg=PA57|accessdate=20 June 2017|language=en}}</ref>
==See also== * Maritime Fur Trade
== References == ;Notes {{reflist|30em}}
;Sources * ''Other Merchants and Sea Captains of Old Boston'', State Street Trust Company, Boston, Mass., 1919. * [http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HBS.Baker.EAD:bak00115 John Perkins Cushing Business Records at Baker Library Historical Collections, Harvard Business School] * [http://catalog.bostonathenaeum.org/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=39190 Papers of John Perkins Cushing and Family at the Boston Athenæum]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Cushing, John Perkins}} Category:1787 births Category:1862 deaths Category:Sailors from Massachusetts Category:Philanthropists from Massachusetts Category:Businesspeople from Boston Category:People from Belmont, Massachusetts Category:American expatriates in China John Perkins Category:19th-century American merchants Category:Merchants from Massachusetts