Thomas Hancock (merchant)
Thomas Hancock (July 17, 1703August 1, 1764) was a merchant in colonial Boston. Born to Reverend John Hancock and Elizabeth (Clark), he got his start in the book trade and expanded into importing and exporting throughout the Thirteen Colonies. He was also a smuggler, evading the Navigation Acts by trading with the Dutch Republic, which was forbidden. Thanks to lucrative contracts with the Colonial government during King George's War and the Seven Years' War, Hancock became one of Boston's wealthiest men. When his health failed, he passed his business and fortune to his nephew, future Founding Father John Hancock, whom he had raised since John was eight.

References
Fowler, William M. "Hancock, Thomas". American National Biography Online, February 2000.

Further reading
Baxter, William T. The House of Hancock: Business in Boston, 1724–1775. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1945.
Fowler, William M., Jr. The Baron of Beacon Hill: A Biography of John Hancock. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980. .
Tyler, John W. Smugglers & Patriots: Boston Merchants and the Advent of the American Revolution. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1986. .

External links

 Harvard Business School. Hancock family papers, 1664–1854

1703 births
1764 deaths
American booksellers
American Congregationalists
American businesspeople in shipping
Colonial American merchants
Colonial American smugglers
People from colonial Boston
Hancock family of Massachusetts
People from Beacon Hill, Boston