Preserved Fish (1766-1846)

He was born in humble surroundings at Freetown, Massachusetts. His unusual first name was pronounced with three syllables, Pre-ser-ved. He became a successful whale oil merchant at New Bedford but after a difference of opinion over politics relocated to New York. There, he went into the shipping business with Joseph Grinnell, as Fish & Grinnell that later became Grinnell, Minturn & Company. He was one of the original 28 stockbrokers who founded the New York Stock Exchange and after retiring from Fish & Grinnell, he was President of the Tradesman's Bank and President of the Bank of America. He was a member of the group known as the "House of Lords" which met at Baker's Tavern every week-day night and included men such as Gulian Verplanck, Robert Lenox, Bernard Hart, Robert Maitland, William Bayard, Samuel Gouverneur and John Wesley Jarvis. Politically, he was aligned with Tammany Hall and with Gideon Lee his faction were in control of the Democratic Party in New York City when the Locofoco Reformers attempted to wrestle control in the late 1830s.

He was married three times but none of his natural children survived childhood. He adopted a son, William Middleton Fish, who "he ruined by treating too kindly" and he "died a disgraced man" although he left a son who became Fish' heir on the condition that the boy renounced his mother on turning 21-years old. His obituary called him "a rough, obstinate, and eccentric man" but "without guile, charitable and a faithful friend". His fortune in the year of his death (1846) was estimated at $300,000.