Peter Faneuil

Peter Faneuil (June 20, 1700 – March 3, 1743) was a wealthy American colonial merchant, slave trader, and philanthropist who donated Faneuil Hall to Boston.

Childhood

The eldest child of one of three Huguenot brothers who fled France with considerable wealth after the 1685 revocation of the Edict of Nantes, Peter Faneuil was born on June 20, 1700 in New Rochelle, New York to Benjamin Faneuil and Anne Bureau. Having emigrated to America about a decade earlier and become freemen of Massachusetts Bay in 1691, Peter's father, Benjamin, and his uncle, Andrew, had subsequently been early settlers of New Rochelle. Shortly thereafter, Andrew made Boston his permanent residence. Benjamin married Anne Bureau in 1699 and they had at least two sons and three daughters who lived to maturity.

Little is known of Peter's boyhood. His father, prominent and fairly well-to-do, died in 1719 when Peter was 18, and soon Peter, his brother, Benjamin Jr., and his sister Mary moved to Boston. Their widowed, childless uncle Andrew had become one of New England's wealthiest men through shrewd trading and Boston real estate investments. Andrew may have formally adopted his two nephews. Peter Faneuil's first claim to fame occurred in 1728 when he helped his brother-in-law Henry Phillips escape to France after he killed Benjamin Woodbridge in the first duel ever to take place in Boston.