Joseph Sampson

Joseph Sampson (1794 – May 1872) was a 19th-century American businessman and merchant. He was among the founding shareholders of Chemical Bank in 1823.

Sampson was born in Plympton, Massachusetts in 1794 and traced his lineage to Abraham Sampson who had come to Plymouth Colony in 1629-1630 and also to original Pilgrims Miles Standish and John Alden.

Sampson came to New York to work as an apprentice in the auction house of Boggs & Livingston founded in 1800. Sampson would work his way up through the firm which would later be renamed Thompson & Sampson in 1820 and then Joseph Sampson & Co. in 1830. This firm continued under different names into the 20th Century. Sampson was one of the founders of the Chemical Bank, subscribing to one tenth of the capital stock and asking to take more, but it was not thought wise to let any one hold more than that proportion. Already being a director of the Bank of Commerce, he did not serve as such in the Chemical Bank, but was always one of the leading advisers and directors of its policy, visiting it every day and consulting with its officers.

Sampson retired from business at a comparatively early age, but continued to take an active and leading part in the various companies and institutions with which he was connected as director. He was at the time of his death, in 1872, a director in the New York Life Insurance and Trust Company, the Bank of Commerce, the New York Gas Light Company, and the Eagle Fire Company, in most of which, if not in all, he was the largest stockholder.

In 1840, Sampson acquired to the house built by the banker Samuel Ward III (father of Samuel Ward IV) at the corner of Broadway and Bond Street. Sampson paid $70,000 for this property, leading John Jacob Astor to remark that he "did not know that there was any one in New York who could afford to pay such a price for a residence".