James Fisk

James Fisk may refer to:

James Fisk (politician)

James Fisk (October 4, 1763 – November 17, 1844) was an American politician from Vermont. He served in the House of Representatives and the United States Senate.

Biography

Fisk was born in Greenwich, Massachusetts and was self-educated. He served in the Revolutionary War from 1779 to 1782. He was a member of the Massachusetts General Court in 1785. Fisk was ordained as a Universalist minister, and preached occasionally. He married Priscilla West.

Fisk moved to Barre, Vermont in 1798 where he worked as a farmer and minister. He studied law and was admitted to the bar; he began the practice of law in Barre.

Fisk entered politics in Vermont as a member of the Vermont House of Representatives, serving from 1800 to 1805, 1809 to 1810 and in 1815. He was judge of the Orange County, Vermont Court from 1802 to 1809 and in 1816. He was selected as the member from Orange County to locate the capital in 1803. Fisk served as chairman of the committee that endeavored to get a settlement of the northern boundary with Canada in 1804.

James Fisk (financier)

James Fisk, Jr. (April 1, 1835 – January 7, 1872) – known variously as "Big Jim", "Diamond Jim", and "Jubilee Jim" – was an American stockbroker and corporate executive who has been referred to as one of the "robber barons" of the Gilded Age.

Early life and career

Fisk was born in the hamlet of Pownal, Vermont, in Bennington County in 1835. After a brief period in school, he ran away in 1850 and joined Van Amberg's Mammoth Circus & Menagerie. Later, he became a hotel waiter, and finally adopted the business of his father, a peddler. He applied what he learned in the circus to his peddling and grew his father's business. He then became a salesman for Jordan Marsh, a Boston dry goods firm. A failure as a salesman, he was sent to Washington, D.C., in 1861 to sell textiles to the government. By his shrewd dealing in army contracts during the Civil War, and, by some accounts, cotton smuggling across enemy lines – in which he enlisted the help of his father – he accumulated considerable wealth, which he soon lost in speculation.