Tomes, Francis, 1780-1869

Francis Tomes was an English-born businessman.

He was born October 14, 1780, in Chipping Campden, Gloucester, England. Due to financial hardship caused by the death of his father in 1785, Francis began working early in life as a clerk to Edward Lewis, who had a Birmingham-based trading business. In 1812 Tomes married Maria Roberts, and soon after he started his own trading business, which failed. His former employer Lewis hired him to start a branch of his business in New York City, to be called "Lewis & Tomes." Francis moved to New York in 1815 to start up the business: the firm imported British manufactured goods and exported cotton from the United States to England. His wife and two infant sons followed him to New York in 1816, and the couple had four more children (including Robert Tomes, b. 1817). The trading business became so successful Tomes bought out Lewis and became "Francis Tomes & Sons." When Tomes reached old age he handed over the control of the company to his sons Francis Jr. and Benjamin, and Tomes (Sr.) moved back to England. He died in Little Longstone, Derbyshire, England, in 1869, age 79. His trading business made it necessary for Tomes to travel frequently, both across the Atlantic to England and within the United States. Even with the great difficulties of traveling in the early-to-mid 1800s, Tomes loved to travel, especially by ship. He was less enthused about the United States and its cities. Being a relatively moderate and temperate man, he was dismayed by the debauchery of the frontier life he witnessed while journeying from one city to another throughout the Eastern, Midwestern, and Southern states. His memories of these trips make up his part of the collection, which are his travel journals.

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