Product Code Database
Malachy Salter (February 28, 1715 – January 13, 1781) was an American-born merchant and politician who sat in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly from 1759 to 1772. Barry Cahill, "The Treason of the Merchants: Dissent and Repression in Halifax in the Era of the American Revolution", Acadiensis, Vol. 26, 1 (Autumn 1996), p. 53 Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online
In 1754 Salter expanded his operations into the field of government contracts. He was subsequently called upon to provide certain mercantile evaluations for the government.
Salter was an early member of the grand jury in Halifax and served as a captain of militia (1761–1762) and an Overseer of the Poor (1765–1766). In 1757, he became a leader in the committee of Halifax Fee simple which used legal effort to force Governor Charles Lawrence to convene a representative assembly in October 1758, Salter was amongst its 20 members.
For 15 years Salter sat in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly, starting with the 1st General Assembly in 1758, and representing Halifax Township from 1759 to 1765 and Yarmouth Township from 1766 to 1772.
During the Seven Years’ War Salter was owner, with other Halifax entrepreneurs, of the privateer ship Lawrence. With his development of a sugar-house at Halifax in the mid-1760s. This and his American trade connections enabled him to capitalize upon the embargoes placed on British Empire goods by the Thirteen Colonies in the late 1760s. Despite his various interests, and further government contracts during the administration of Michael Francklin his fortunes continued to follow the decline of the Nova Scotia economy. In 1768 shipping and other losses were too much and after two years settling his debts in Nova Scotia and New England, he operated his sugar-house himself. In 1773 he built a vessel at Liverpool, Nova Scotia to return to the sea, as a trader, where he had begun - as a youth.
Later the same year his brig Rising Sun was captured by Salem privateers as prize. When prisoner in New England, he obtained a pass from the Massachusetts government to settle his family there. On his return to Halifax later that year, he saw continued court proceedings against him.
Salter has been ranked by historians among the most important entrepreneurs of early Halifax, yet he failed to establish himself securely within its profitable network.
The large house he constructed at the corner of Hollis and Salter streets, about 1760 was eventually purchased by William Lawson and, later demolished to become part of the site of Maritime Place, in downtown Halifax.
|
|
