interred 3/28/1871
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John Tappan
Massachusetts Deaths, 1841-1915
birth: 1782
death: 25 March 1871 Boston, Massachusetts
father: Benjamin
mother: Sarah F.
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Information below provided by: LadyGoshen (#46951894).
In early life he entered upon a mercantile career, obtaining employment in one of the large Boston houses. In 1805 his employers sent him to purchase goods in England and, was shipwrecked on his return voyage on the ship Jupiter. On April 6 the vessel encountered extensive fields of ice and at midnight ice penetrated in the starboard bow. Two boats were launched, thirty-nine people embarking in the long boat and eight in the yawl. The ship went down with twenty-seven souls on board. The people in the boats suffered for three days and nights from fatigue and cold. Mr Tappan fashioned a fork from an oar with his pocket knife and with it caught fish to sustain their lives. Also his large silk handkerchief was waved from an oar to attract a passing ship to their rescue.(Fork and handkerchief are now family heirlooms.) Passing vessels picked up the two boats and three weeks later landed the shipwrecked passengers at Marblehead.

Later in life Mr Tappan became a prominent and wealthy Boston merchant and was distinguished for his active benevolence. For more than twenty years he was president of the American Tract Society and was an officer of the Foreign Missionary Society. Like his brothers, Arthur and Lewis, he was a promoter of the anti-slavery reform. In 1843 he was sent to London by the US government as delegate to the International Convention of Peace.

m Sarah Salisbury on 20 Sept 1805
Children:
- John Gallison Tappan (5 Feb 1808-29 Aug 1883) m Eliza Lawrence Trask
- Samuel Salisbury Tappan (2 Sep 1809-25 Nov 1890) m1 Eveline L Stearns, m2 Hannah Dana
- Sarah Salibury Tappan (11 Mar 1811-) m Thomas Denny
- Rebecca Waldo Tappan (5 Nov 1812-) m Henry E Davies
- Lewis William Tappan (3 Aug 1814-14 Apr 1898) m Mary Coffin Swift
- Mary Salisbury Tapan (3 Apr 1816-) m James William Kimball
- Francis Wilder Tappan (29 Dec 1817-31 Oct 1904) m Belinda Laura de Peyster
- Elizabeth Sewall Tappan (28 May 1819-6 Mar 1908)
- Lucy Peirce Tappan (8 Apr 1821-13 Aug 1839)
- Henry Edwards Tappan (July 1823-1823)
- Henry Martyn Tappan (July 1825-1825)
- Josiah Salisbury Tappan (20 Jan 1826-13 Feb 1912) m Helen Christina de Peyster

m2 Hannah Pomroy on 22 Sep 1841

Source:
- Tappan-Toppan genealogy: ancestors and descendants of Abraham Toppan by Daniel Langdon Tappan (1915)∼John Tappan, for forty years President and Treasurer of the American Tract Society, died in Boston March 2?th, in the ninetieth year of his age.

The Atlanta Constitution; Atlanta, Georgia.
April 15, 1871; Page Two.