The Cabot family is one of the Boston Brahmin families, also known as the "first families of Boston".

History

Family

The Boston Brahmin Cabot family descended from John Cabot (born 1680 in Jersey, a British Crown Dependency and one of the Channel Islands), who emigrated from his birthplace to Salem, Massachusetts in 1700.

The Cabot family emigrated from Jersey, where the family name can be traced back to at least 1274. In Latin, caput means "head", and the Rev. George Balleine writes that in Jersey the "cabot" is a small fish that seems all head. In French, once a commonly spoken language in Jersey, "cabot" means a dog, or a military corporal, "caboter" is to navigate along the coast, and "cabotin" means "theatrical".

Rise to prominence

thumb|[[George Cabot, one of John Cabot's grandsons]]

John Cabot (born 1680 Isle of Jersey) became highly successful merchants, operating a fleet of privateers carrying opium, rum, and enslaved people. Shipping during the eighteenth century was the lifeblood of most of Boston's first families. Joseph's sons, Joseph Cabot Jr. (born 1746 in Salem), George Cabot (born 1752 in Salem), and Samuel Cabot (born 1758 in Salem), left Harvard to work their way through shipping, furthering the family fortune furthered the family fortune by combining the first family staples of working in shipping and marrying money. In 1812, was an eminent surgeon, whose daughter, Lilla Cabot Perry, was a noted Impressionist artist. His son, Godfrey Lowell Cabot (born 1861 in Boston) founded Cabot Corporation, the largest carbon black producer in the country, used for inks and paints. Godfrey's son, John Moors Cabot (born 1901 in Cambridge), in Brookline),

Boston Toast

The widely known "Boston Toast" by Holy Cross alumnus John Collins Bossidy features the Cabot family:

Kabotchnik v. Cabot

In 1923, Harry H. Kabotchnik and his wife Myrtle petitioned to have his family name changed to Cabot.

Some prominent Cabots of Boston (Judge Cabot of the Boston Juvenile Court; Stephen Cabot, headmaster of St. George's School, Middletown, R.I.; Dr. Hugh Cabot, dean of University of Michigan Medical School) along with the Pennsylvania branch of the Order of the Founders and Patriots, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania counter-sued to prevent the change.

Judge Charles Young Audenried eventually ruled for the Kabotchniks, as there was "nothing in the law to prevent it."

Members

  • John Cabot (b. 1680 in Isle of Jersey) in Salem) – ship merchant
  • Susanna Cabot (b. 1754), second wife of John Lowell
  • Francis Cabot Lowell (b. 1775 in Newburyport) – cofounded Harvard's Porcellian Club, helped introduce power loom in U.S.
  • Joseph Cabot (b. 1720 in Salem) – cofounded America's first cotton mill, John Cabot House namesake
  • Joseph Cabot Jr. (b. 1746 in Salem) (b. 1783)
  • Anna Cabot (b. 1821) – U.S. Senator from Massachusetts and ardent opponent of Woodrow Wilson's League of Nations
  • George Cabot Lodge (b. 1873 in Boston) – poet
  • Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. (b. 1902 in Nahant, MA) – U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, incumbent 1952 U.S. Senate candidate from Massachusetts against John F. Kennedy, U.S. Ambassador to United Nations and South Vietnam, and 1960 vice presidential candidate for Richard Nixon against Kennedy–Lyndon B. Johnson
  • George Cabot Lodge II (b. 1927) – Harvard Business School professor, 1962 U.S. Senate candidate from Massachusetts against Edward M. Kennedy
  • John Davis Lodge (b. 1903 in Washington, D.C.) – 64th Governor of Connecticut
  • Francis Cabot (b. 1757 in Salem)
  • Mary Ann Cabot (b. 1784) - married her first cousin, Nathaniel Cabot Lee (b. 1772), son of Joseph Lee and Elizabeth Cabot (daughter of Joseph Cabot)
  • John Clarke Lee (b. 1804 in Boston)
  • George Cabot Lee (b. 1830 in Boston)
  • Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt (b. 1861), first wife of President Theodore Roosevelt
  • Frederick Cabot (b. 1786 in Salem)
  • Francis Higginson Cabot (b. 1859 in Boston)
  • Francis Higginson Cabot (b. 1896)
  • Samuel Cabot (b. 1758 in Salem) – chemist, founder of Samuel Cabot Inc. that produces Cabot Stains which would later be purchased by Valspar
  • Arthur Tracy Cabot (b. 1852 in Boston) – progressive surgeon
  • Godfrey Lowell Cabot (b. 1861 in Boston) – businessman and philanthropist, Cabot House namesake
  • Louis Wellington Cabot – businessman, philanthropist, former chairman of Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, married Mabel Hobart
  • Linda Cabot Black – cofounder of Opera Company of Boston and Opera New England
  • Sophie Cabot Black (b. 1958) – poet
  • John Moors Cabot (b. 1901 in Cambridge) – U.S. Ambassador to Sweden, Colombia, Brazil, and Poland during the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations
  • Lewis P. Cabot -Busunessman and art collector
  • John G. L. Cabot
  • Andrew Cabot – CEO and COO of Privateer Rum, married Kristin Thornby in 2023
  • Eleanor Cabot – Eleanor Cabot Bradley Estate namesake
  • Edward Clarke Cabot (b. 1818) — architect and artist
  • Elizabeth Cabot Lee (b. 1819 in Boston) — philanthropist and co-sponsor of the Harvard Museum of Natural History's famous Glass Flowers exhibit. Widely known as Elizabeth C. Ware (her married name).
  • James Elliot Cabot (b. 1821 in Boston) — philosopher and author
  • Charles Mills Cabot (b. 1866 in Brookline, Massachusetts) founder of the investment firm Moors & Cabot.
  • Elliot Cabot (b. 1899 in Boston) — actor
  • Richard Clarke Cabot (b. 1868 in Brookline) — clinical physician, social work pioneer
  • Hugh Cabot (b. 1872 in Beverly Farms) – surgeon and educator
  • Hugh Cabot (b. 1905 in Boston)
  • Hugh Cabot III (b. 1930 in Boston) — painter
  • Walter Channing Cabot (b. 1829)
  • Henry Bromfield Cabot (b. 1861 in Boston) – lawyer
  • Paul Codman Cabot (b. 1898 in Brookline)
  • Charles Codman Cabot (b. 1900 in Brookline) — associate judge of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, Boston Bar Association president
  • Elise Cabot Forbes (b. 1869) — maternal grandmother of Michael Paine
  • Eliza Lee Cabot Follen (b. 1787 in Boston) – abolitionist and writer

Cabot family network

Associates

The following is a list of figures closely aligned with or subordinate to the Cabot family.

  • Nathan Appleton
  • Samuel Bodman
  • Sarah Caldwell
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • Augustus Peabody Gardner
  • Prescott F. Hall
  • Alexander Hamilton
  • Patrick Tracy Jackson
  • Abbott Lawrence
  • John Lowell
  • Harrison Gray Otis
  • T.H. Perkins
  • Thomas S. Perry
  • Josiah Quincy Jr.
  • Theodore Roosevelt
  • Israel Thorndike
  • John Train
  • Sam Zemurray

Businesses

The following is a list of companies in which the Cabot family have held a controlling or otherwise significant interest.

  • Beverly Cotton Manufactory
  • Boston Manufacturing Company
  • Cabot, Cabot & Forbes
  • Cabot Corporation
  • Gulf Central Pipeline Company
  • Holtzer-Cabot Electrical Company
  • John & Andrew Cabot and Company
  • Lee, Higginson & Co.
  • Opera Company of Boston
  • Radio Swan
  • Samuel Cabot, Inc.
  • Southworth Machine Company
  • State Street Investment Corporation
  • Train, Cabot & Associates
  • United Fruit Company

Philanthropy Institutions & Miscellaneous Non-profits

  • Aero Club of New England
  • Cabot Corporation Foundation
  • Cabot Family Charitable Trust
  • Ella Lyman Cabot Trust
  • The Garden Conservancy
  • Glass Flowers
  • Godfrey L. Cabot Solar Energy Conversion Research Project
  • Immigration Restriction League
  • Maria Moors Cabot Prize
  • Massachusetts General Hospital
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Paul & Virginia Cabot Charitable Trust
  • Porcellian Club
  • Virginia Wellington Cabot Foundation
  • Watch and Ward Society

Buildings and historic sites

  • Cabot House (Harvard)
  • Cabot Farm
  • Eleanor Cabot Bradley Estate
  • Jeremiah Lee Mansion
  • John Cabot House
  • Les Quatre Vents
  • Lewis Cabot Estate
  • Mount Murray
  • Stonecrop Gardens

See also

  • List of United States political families

References

  • Papers, 1786–1945. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University
  • The Cabot Family