Quick Facts
Biography
Mark Anthony DeWolf (also spelled D'Wolf and deWolfe; November 8, 1726 – November 9, 1793) was an American merchant and slave trader.
Biography
Mark Anthony DeWolf was born in 1726 in Guadaloupe, French West Indies. He was the second son of Charles DeWolf and Margaret DeWolf (née Potter). His father was born in Lyme, Connecticut, in 1695, but in 1717 immigrated to Guadaloupe, where he remained for the rest of his life.
DeWolf received formal education in a French school and spoke several languages. DeWolf moved from Guadeloupe to the United States at age 17 after being hired as a deckhand on a slave-trading vessel owned by Simeon Potter. Soon after his 1744 arrival he married Potter's sister, Abigail. Shortly after they married, DeWolf joined Simeon Potter on board of the privateer Prince Charles of Lorraine to participate in King George's War in the West Indies.
DeWolf settled in Bristol, Rhode Island, but after his house was burnt in an attack on the town by British and Hessian forces in 1778, he relocated his family to a farm in Swansea, Massachusetts. He did not return to Bristol until shortly before his death on 17 September 1793.
The DeWolf family
DeWolf was the 4th generation from Balthazar DeWolf of Lyme, Connecticut.
DeWolf married Abigail Potter of Bristol, Rhode Island, on 26 August 1744. They had eight sons and seven daughters. Senator James DeWolf was DeWolf's twelfth child. James DeWolf made most of his fortune in the slave trade. In total, the DeWolf family is believed to have transported more than 11,000 slaves to the United States before the African slave trade was banned in 1808. General George DeWolf, the builder of Linden Place, was Mark Anthony DeWolf's grandson through his son Major Charles DeWolf.
