merchant and governor of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations
1705 CE
to 1780 CE
Joseph Wanton Sr. (August 15, 1705 – July 19, 1780) is a merchant and governor of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations from 1769 to 1775.
Not wanting to go to war with Britain, he is branded as a Loyalist, but he remains neutral during the war, and he and his property are not disturbed.
Born in Newport of a prominent Quaker family that is very involved in Rhode Island politics, Wanton becomes a highly successful merchant.
He is depicted in the satirical 1750s painting by John Greenwood, Sea Captains Carousing in Surinam, with other prominent merchants and seamen from the colony.
As a merchant, he is involved in the trade of most goods, including slaves, and at one point his ship with a cargo of rum and slaves is confiscated off the coast of Africa by a French privateer.
With no known civic background, Wanton is elected as governor of the colony in 1769, and serves for six years. With the American Revolutionary War on the horizon, he is involved with a large array of issues and incidents, most notably the Gaspee Affair in 1772, where he plays an important role in thwarting the crown from finding the members of the group of colonists that had boarded and burned the royal schooner Gaspee.
The formation of the Continental Congress takes place during his administration, and he is in continuous communication with governors of other colonies.
He also becomes a founder and trustee of the new college in the Rhode Island colony, eventually named Brown University.
As the Revolutionary War approaches, members of the General Assembly are getting very hawkish, and when Wanton is elected for the seventh time in 1775, he refuses to agree to the raising of an army of fifteen hundred men, and will not commission new officers.
He also will not immediately take the oath of office, and for these reasons the Assembly refuses to seat him as governor, and formally removes him from office a few months later, with Nicholas Cooke taking his place.
While he is not overtly Loyalist, he does not see a war with Great Britain to be in the interest of the colony.
He retires to his home in Newport where he is undisturbed during the war, and dies before its conclusion, in 1780.
