Merchant, Financler, Philanthropist

Early Years.

George Peabody was born on 18 February 1795 in South Danvers (now Peabody), Massachusetts. His parents being of modest means, Peabody attended the local village school for only four years before taking up an apprenticeship with a local grocer at age eleven. Several years later he became a clerk in his brother David's dry-goods store in nearby Newburyport until the business was destroyed in a fire in 1811. In May 1812 Peabody moved to Georgetown, outside of Washington, D.C., where he was made a partner in Elisha Riggs's substantial dry-goods business. The company was relocated to Baltimore in 1815, and when, in 1829, Riggs retired, Peabody became the senior partner in the firm. In his efforts to expand his business, Peabody made several trips to London, which was at this time still the world's financial capital. In 1837 he settled permanently in London, becoming something of...