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Portrait
Artist: Mary Brewster Hazelton
MGH Department Affiliation: Trustee, President and Benefactor
Appleton, William
Catalog Number: 72
Oil painting, 39.5" x 31.5", 46" x 39" with frame.
William Appleton (1786-1862) arrived in Boston in 1807 from Brookfield, Massachusetts, where his father was a minister. Appleton brought with him $400 of $700 that he had just won in a lottery. He eventually became a successful merchant for more than fifty years, covering the whole world wherever there was a profit to be made. He was president of the United States Branch Bank from 1832 to 1836. He was a trustee of Massachusetts General Hospital from 1838 to 1842, and he was the president of the hospital from 1844 to 1862. Appleton was also elected to the United States Congress as a member of the Whig party, serving from 1851 to 1855, and then in 1861 during a special session. He died one of the richest men in Boston.
A letter on the back from Donald Appleton, Rockholm, Annisquam, MA (1982) describes William Appleton as a trader/ship owner, who lived at 54 Beacon Street. His son-in-law was T.J. Coolidge, and his diary is at the New England Historic Genealogical Society. "Give his portrait a good place over the fireplace".
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