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Otis, James William

American, 1800 - 1869

Biography

James was the great-grandson of Harrison Gray [1711-1794], the sitter for a portrait by John Singleton Copley now in the NGA (1976.25.1). Harrison Gray was a merchant, as well as treasurer and receiver-general for the Province of Massachusetts Bay, a position that he held from 1753 until the eve of the American Revolution. He published his loyalist views in 1775 in a pamphlet titled The Two Congresses Cut Up. He fled Boston in 1776 and spent the rest of his life in England. Harrison's daughter, Elizabeth Gray Otis, married Samuel Alleyne Otis [1740-1814], brother of pamphleteer James Otis and author Mercy Otis Warren. Both Samuel Alleyne Otis and Elizabeth Gray Otis, are subjects of portraits now in the NGA (1980.11.1, 1980.11.2). Their son, Harrison Gray Otis [1765-1848] was James' father. [Compiled from sources and references recorded on CMS]

Bibliography

1924
Otis, William A. A Genealogical and Historical Memoir of the Otis Family in America. Chicago, 1924: 106, 141, 202.
1969
Morison, Samuel Eliot. Harison Gray Otis, 1765-1848, The Urbane Federalist. Boston, 1969: 6, 17-30.

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