Isaac Roosevelt

Isaac Roosevelt by Gilbert Stuart.

NPS Photo

Quick Facts

Significance:

Merchant and Politician

Place of Birth:

New York City

Date of Birth:

December 19, 1726

Date of Death:

October 1794

Isaac Roosevelt was a sugar merchant whose opposition to British trade laws and their reduction of profits drove him to the Revolutionary cause. In the Roosevelt family he was known by the distinctive title of "the Patriot." Even when it became apparent that there would be no reconciliation between the king of England and the colonists, Isaac remained adamant against violence and in favor of a strong national government. He voted for independence and when the English troops occupied New York, Isaac abandoned his business and home and came to Dutchess County.

Isaac served in the New York State Assembly and was a member of the State Constitutional Convention of 1788 which met in Poughkeepsie, where he was a silent ally of Alexander Hamilton, and later served as the president of the Bank of New York which he, Hamilton, and others had founded. 

Isaac was a descendant of Nicholas Roosevelt (1658–1742) and his great-grandfather was the Dutch immigrant Claes Maartenszen Van Rosenvelt (d. 1659), who established the Roosevelt family in America. He was the great-great-grandfather of Franklin D. Roosevelt.