View source for Isaac Low

{{short description|American politician}}
{{infobox officeholder
| name                = Isaac Low
| image               = File:Isaac Low (NYPL NYPG94-F149-419952).jpg
| title               = Member of the [[Continental Congress]]
| term_start          = September 5, 1774
| term_end            = October 26, 1774
| predecessor         = 
| successor           = 
| caption             = 
| birth_date          = {{Birth date|1731|04|13|df=yes}}
| birth_place         = [[Piscataway, New Jersey|Piscataway]], [[Province of New Jersey]], [[British America]]
| death_date          = {{Death date and age|1791|08|25|1731|04|13|df=yes}}
| death_place         = [[Cowes]], [[Isle of Wight]], [[Kingdom of Great Britain|Great Britain]]
| occupation          = Merchant
| children            = Isaac Low Jr.
| parents             = [[Cornelius Low Jr.]]<br>Johanna Gouverneur
| spouse              = {{marriage| Margarita Cuyler<br>|1760}}
| relatives           = [[Nicholas Low]] (brother)<br>[[Abraham Cuyler]] (brother-in-law)<br>[[Sir Cornelius Cuyler, 1st Baronet|Cornelius Cuyler]] (brother-in-law)<br>[[Cornelis Cuyler]] (father-in-law)
}}
'''Isaac Low''' (April 13, 1731 – August 25, 1791) was an American merchant in [[New York City]] who served as a member of the [[Continental Congress]], where he signed the [[Continental Association]]. He later served as a delegate to the [[New York Provincial Congress]]. Though originally a [[Patriot (American Revolution)|Patriot]], he later joined the [[Loyalist (American Revolution)|Loyalist]] cause in the [[American Revolution]].

==Early life==
Low was born on April 13, 1731, at [[Raritan Landing, New Jersey|Raritan Landing]] in [[Piscataway, New Jersey|Piscataway]], [[Province of New Jersey]].<ref name="ILbioguide">{{cite web |title=LOW, Isaac - Biographical Information |url=https://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=L000470 |website=bioguide.congress.gov |publisher=[[Biographical Directory of the United States Congress]] |access-date=20 June 2018}}</ref>  He was the son of Cornelius Low Jr. and Johanna ([[née]] [[Samuel L. Gouverneur|Gouverneur]]) Low and the brother of [[Nicholas Low]].<ref name="Ingham1983">{{cite book |last1=Ingham |first1=John N. |title=Biographical Dictionary of American Business Leaders |date=1983 |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |isbn=9780313213625 |page=826 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qzxy3pejsdoC&pg=PA826 |access-date=20 June 2018 |language=en}}</ref><ref name="NLloc">{{cite web |title=Nicholas Low papers, 1773-1897 |url=https://www.loc.gov/item/mm81030627/ |website=www.loc.gov |publisher=[[The Library of Congress]] |access-date=20 June 2018 |language=en}}</ref> His father was a well-established merchant and shipper who built the [[Cornelius Low House]], an extant 1741 Georgian mansion, and brought prominence to the community of Raritan Landing.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://co.middlesex.nj.us/culturalheritage/museum.asp |title=Cornelius Low House / Middlesex County Museum |access-date=2008-10-16 |quote=Cornelius Low was a leading citizen of Raritan Landing, a port community on the Raritan River in central New Jersey that flourished between 1720 and 1835. |publisher=[[Middlesex County, New Jersey]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081016042835/http://www.co.middlesex.nj.us/culturalheritage/museum.asp |archive-date=2008-10-16 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Low's family was descended from German, Dutch and French [[Huguenots|Huguenot]] settlers.<ref name="Ingham1983" />

==Career==
Low served as a tax commissioner for the New York provincial government during the [[French and Indian War]].  Low was a prominent merchant in New York City, with various firms including Lott & Low.<ref name="American1890" /> He had large real estate holdings, built up sizable trade, and had interests in a [[slitting mill]].<ref name="Harrington1935">{{cite book |last1=Harrington |first1=Virginia Draper |title=The New York Merchant on the Eve of the Revolution |date=1935 |publisher=[[Columbia University Press]] |pages=132, 339, 349 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Iv8NAQAAIAAJ |access-date=20 June 2018 |language=en}}</ref> Low was chosen as a delegate to the [[Stamp Act Congress]] in 1763.<ref name="Ingham1983"/> Although he accumulated a fortune that placed him in the upper ranks of colonial New York's merchant leaders, he was "nowhere near its absolute pinnacle."<ref name="anb">{{cite book |title=Low, Isaac (1735-1791), merchant, early revolutionary leader, and later prominent Loyalist {{!}} American National Biography |url=https://www.anb.org/view/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.001.0001/anb-9780198606697-e-0100540 |website=www.anb.org | year=2000 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] | doi=10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.0100540 | isbn=978-0-19-860669-7 |access-date=20 June 2018 |language=en| last1=Countryman | first1=Edward }}</ref>

He was an active speaker against [[No taxation without representation|taxation without representation]] and the chairman of New York City's [[Committees of correspondence|Committee of Correspondence]] in 1765.{{Citation needed|date=December 2020}} He became chairman of New York City's [[Committee of Sixty]] in 1774. Low was named one of nine delegates from New York to the [[First Continental Congress]] in 1774{{refn|group=lower-alpha|Low was appointed to the [[First Continental Congress]] by the [[Committee of Sixty|Committee of Fifty-one]] of the City and County of New York and authorized by the counties of Albany, Duchess, and Westchester.<ref>{{cite book| url = http://mrsoloughlin.weebly.com/| title = Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789| editor = Worthington C. Ford, Library of Congress (United States)| page  = 101| date = 1774| access-date = February 7, 2010|display-editors=etal}}</ref>}} and to [[New York Provincial Congress]] the following year where he pursued a moderate approach towards the British.<ref name="Wilson1893">{{cite book |last1=Wilson |first1=James Grant |title=The Memorial History of the City of New-York: From Its First Settlement to the Year 1892 |date=1893 |publisher=New York History Company |page=[https://archive.org/details/memorialhistory00wilsgoog/page/n516 516] |url=https://archive.org/details/memorialhistory00wilsgoog |access-date=20 June 2018 |language=en}}</ref> In 1775, he was a founder and the first president of the [[New York Chamber of Commerce]].<ref name="Appleton">''Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography,'' edited by James Grant Wilson, John Fiske and Stanley L. Klos. Six volumes, New York: D. Appleton and Company (1887–1889); published on the Web by StanKlos.com (1999).</ref>

===American Revolutionary War===
Opposed to armed conflict with the British Crown, Low quit the Patriot cause after the [[United States Declaration of Independence|Declaration of Independence]] was announced in 1776 and relocated to New Jersey, where he was imprisoned on suspicion of [[treason]] by the New Jersey Convention. He was eventually released after [[George Washington]] intervened. He later collaborated with British occupation forces in New York, and his property was confiscated after the New York assembly passed a motion of attainder in 1779. Four years later, Low emigrated to England where he died in 1791.<ref name="Appleton"/>

==Personal life==
Low married Margarita Cuyler (1738–1802) in 1760, a scion of the powerful [[Schuyler family|Schuyler]] and [[Van Cortlandt family|Van Cortlandt families]].<ref name="American1890">{{cite book |title=The Illustrated American |date=1890 |publisher=Illustrated American Publishing Company |page=414 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CRhLAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA414 |access-date=20 June 2018 |language=en}}</ref>  Both her father, [[Cornelis Cuyler]], and brother, [[Abraham Cuyler]], were mayors of [[Albany, New York|Albany]].  Another brother, General [[Cornelius Cuyler]], was a [[British Army]] officer during the [[French Revolutionary Wars]], who served as [[List of governors of Portsmouth|Lt. Gov. of Portsmouth]] and was created a [[Cuyler baronets|Baronet of St John's Lodge]].{{Citation needed|date=December 2020}} Together, Isaac and Margarita were the parents of one child,<ref name="American1890"/> Isaac Low Jr., who was educated in French and became a British army commissary-general.<ref name="Jasanoff2012">{{cite book |last1=Jasanoff |first1=Maya |title=Liberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World |date=2012 |publisher=[[Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group]] |isbn=9781400075478 |page=385 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uGKsn09oVwQC&pg=PA385 |access-date=20 June 2018 |language=en}}</ref><ref name="Council1844">{{cite book |title=(Thirteenth-Fourteenth) Annual Report of the Council: With The Lists of The Local Committees; Proceedings of Evening Meetings; The Laws; And A List of The Members |date=1844 |location=London |page=35 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=up1eAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA35 |access-date=20 June 2018 |language=en}}</ref><ref name="allthingsliberty">{{cite web |last1=Werther |first1=Richard J. |title=Patriots Turned Loyalist—The Experiences of Joseph Galloway and Isaac Low |url=https://allthingsliberty.com/2018/02/patriots-turned-loyalist-experiences-joseph-galloway-isaac-low/ |website=allthingsliberty.com |publisher=Journal of the American Revolution |access-date=20 June 2018 |date=21 February 2018}}</ref>

Low died in [[Cowes]] on the [[Isle of Wight]], [[Kingdom of Great Britain|Great Britain]], on August 25, 1791. Although a family tradition holds that his wife joined him, probate records hold that she died in Albany in 1802.<ref name="MCL">{{cite web |last1=Bielinski |first1=Stephen |title=Margarita Cuyler Low |url=https://www.nysm.nysed.gov/albany/bios/c/mgtcuyler592.html |website=www.nysm.nysed.gov |publisher=[[New York State Museum]] |access-date=20 June 2018}}</ref>

==References==

=== Notes ===
{{Reflist|group=lower-alpha}}

=== Sources ===
{{Reflist|30em}}

==External links==
* {{CongBio|L000470}}
* [http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/guidedisplay.pl?index=L000470 LOW, Isaac (1731–1791) Guide to Research Papers]

{{Signers of the Continental Association}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Low, Isaac}}
[[Category:1731 births]]
[[Category:1791 deaths]]
[[Category:Members of the New York Provincial Congress]]
[[Category:Continental Congressmen from New York (state)]]
[[Category:People from Piscataway, New Jersey]]
[[Category:Tax commissioners of New York (state)]]
[[Category:Cuyler family]]
[[Category:Signatories of the Continental Association]]
[[Category:Merchants from the Province of New York]]
[[Category:18th-century American merchants]]