John Cabot (1680-1742)
John Cabot I, Founder of the Cabots of Salem, Massachusetts
He was a native of St. Helier on the Island of Jersey between England and France and settled in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1700. He and his son, Joseph, became very successful merchants operating a fleet of privateers that traded in opium, rum, and slaves. He is the ancestor of the Cabot family of New England who are generally deemed to have been the wealthiest of the "Codfish Aristocracy". In Boston in their heyday, a popular saying went: "And this is good old Boston, The home of the bean and the cod, Where the Lowells talk only to the Cabots, And the Cabots talk only to God".
