Known for Tobacco manufacturer Name Pierre II | Role Industrialist | |
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Born September 7, 1764 ( 1764-09-07 ) Province of New York Resting place New York Marble Cemetery Relatives Pierre Lorillard IV, grandson Died May 23, 1843, New York, United States Spouse Maria Dorothea Schultz (m. 1788) Children Pierre Lorillard III, Eleanor Eliza Lorillard, Dorothea Anne Lorillard, Maria Dorothea Lorillard, Catherine Lorillard Parents Catherine Moor, Pierre Abraham Lorillard Siblings Jacob Lorillard, Blasius Lorillard, J. George Lorillard, Johann Jacob Lorillard Grandchildren Pierre Lorillard IV, George L. Lorillard | ||
Pierre Lorillard II (September 7, 1764 – May 23, 1843), also known as Peter Lorillard, Jr., was an American tobacco manufacturer, industrialist, banker, businessman, and real estate tycoon.
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Early life
Lorillard was born on September 7, 1764 in Manhattan, New York City, the son of Pierre Abraham Lorillard (1742–1776) and Catherine Moore.
Career
Lorillard's father, also known as 'Pierre Lorillard I', was the founder of the Lorillard Tobacco Company. Lorillard's father made the first American tobacco fortune by developing a tobacco firm that he started in 1760. Originally the business was a snuff-grinding factory located in a rented house in lower Manhattan. It was called Lorillard's Snuff and Tobacco company and sometimes the name was abbreviated as J. Lorillard. Later the firm moved to a better location on the Bronx River. Lorillard II took over and continued to manage and operate the family business after his father's death in 1776.
Social clubs
Lorillard II was a member of several social clubs including the Meadow Brook Hunt Country Club (a fox hunting club) and the Narragansett Gun Club. He often is associated with Tuxedo Park since between 1802 and 1812 he purchased the first tracts of land upon which it later would be developed. The village and the surrounding area were developed in 1886 by his grandson Pierre Lorillard IV as a resort for the socially prominent.
Personal life
He married Maria Dorothea Schultz (1770–1834) in 1788 and they had five children: They lived at 521 Broadway in Manhattan.
In May 1843, at the age of 79, Lorillard died, outliving his brothers George and Jacob. A newspaper reporter writing his obituary tried to describe an extremely wealthy American and used the relatively new word, "millionaire".
While the word "millionaire" had been in use in the United Kingdom since at least 1816, apparently it was used for the first time in the United States in 1843 when it was used to describe Lorillard, although he was not the first American to own one million dollars' worth of property. While he was one of the wealthiest men in America, he was not the richest at the time, that being John Jacob Astor. Lorillard just happened to have been the first to be called a millionaire in newspapers. Cleveland Amory incorrectly reports that it was in Lorillard's 1843 obituary that the first use of the word "millionaire" appeared in print anywhere.
Philip Hone, one-time mayor of New York, wrote about Lorillard in his famous diary,
He was a tobacconist, and his memory will be preserved in the annals of New York by the celebrity of "Lorillard's Snuff and Tobacco." He led people by the nose for the best part of the century, and made his enormous fortune by giving them that to chew which they could not swallow.
Descendants
His granddaughter was Catharine Lorillard Wolfe (1828–1887), the philanthropist and art collector who gave large amounts of money to institutions such as Grace Episcopal Church and Union College, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.