Trask, Israel E. (Israel Elliot), 1773-1835
Dates
- Existence: 1773 - 1835
Biography
Israel Elliot Trask (1773-1835) was a Massachusetts-born landowner, enslaver, U.S. Army officer, lawyer, businessman, and public official with ties to Brimfield and Springfield, Massachusetts; Adams County and Wilkinson County, Mississippi; and Louisiana. According to the Mississippi State Census return for 1818, Trask was listed as a free white inhabitant of Adams County. Trask was born on March 18, 1773, in Brimfield, Massachusetts, the eldest son of Dr. Israel and Sarah (Lawrence) Trask. Trask attended Yale and entered Harvard with the class of 1794, but only received an honorary degree in A.M. from Harvard in 1814.Trask studied law at Richmond, Virginia, and finished his studies in the office of Judge Jacobs of Windsor, Vermont. He then entered the United States Army with the rank of Captain. He resigned his commission in 1801, with the intention of enlisting in the French army. While in New York, General Alexander Hamilton, to whom he had letters, strongly advised him to commence the practice of law in Natchez, in the then Territory of Mississippi, instead of sailing to France. Taking this advice, he went to Natchez the same year, and formed a partnership with Lyman Harding, the first Attorney-General of Mississippi. Trask opened a law office in New Orleans (the first by an American), but after a short residence his health failed, and he returned to plantation life. Trask married Elizabeth Carter (1788-1860), daughter of Jesse Carter, a landowner and enslaver, of Second Creek Plantation, near Natchez, in 1803, after removing to Natchez in 1801, in the Mississippi Territory. The Trasks had nine children. Five lived to adulthood, including: Elizabeth Lawrence Trask (1813-1894), who married John Gallison Tappan (1808-1883); Israel Carter Trask (b. 1815); Sarah Trask (1816-1893), who married John Remsen Onderdonk (1815-1857); William Elliot Trask (b. 1820); and Edward Trask (b. 1823).
James Lawrence Trask (1781-1855), Israel’s brother, also removed to Mississippi. The business and personal lives of the two brothers were closely entwined and mainly involved the management of their cotton plantations in Mississippi and Louisiana: Second Creek plantation and River plantation in Adams County, Mississippi; La Grange plantation in Wilkinson County, Mississippi; and Grand Cut Off plantation in Concordia Parish, Louisiana. The Trask brothers enslaved hundreds of persons, including Cesar and Lucy, who were sent north to work for Elizabeth (Carter) Trask as domestic servants in Massachusetts; Lucy as early as 1818. By 1828, Lucy claims her freedom as noted in a letter from James to Israel, on October 4, 1828. Within months Caesar also claimed his freedom as reported in a letter from Israel to Eliza, on January 6, 1829. However, Israel implies that Lucy did not leave the family, when he tells Eliza that he hopes Lucy does not follow Cesar’s example.
Possibly as early as 1812, Trask and his family had returned to Massachusetts, while his brother James remained in Mississippi until his death. Throughout his adult life, Trask engaged in various business ventures and held various public offices. During his residence in Brimfield, he interested himself in the manufacture of cotton cloth, and built one of the first factories for that purpose in Western Massachusetts, Brimfield Cotton and Woolen Manufacturing Co. He was elected for several successive years to the State Legislature and was a member of the convention for revising the State Constitution in 1820, serving on the Judiciary Committee. He served as a Trustee of Amherst College from 1821 until 1835. Although having transferred control of the plantations to James, Trask continued to split his time between his family in Massachusetts and the plantations in Mississippi until his death on November 25, 1835, at James’s plantation, La Grange, in Wilkinson County, Mississippi.
Citation:
Some details in the biographical note are from public records found through Ancestry Library Edition; Tyler, W.S. History of Amherst College During the First Half Century, 1821-1871. Clark W. Bryan and Company, 1873; Chapin, Charles Wells. Sketches of the Old Inhabitants and Other Citizens of Old Springfield of the Present Century: and Its Historic Mansions of "Ye Olden Tyme.” Springfield, Mass.: Press of Springfield Print. and Binding Co., 1893; and Johnson, Charles Owen. The genealogy of several allied families: Frazer, Owen, Bessellieu, Carter, Shaw, Wright, Landfair, Briggs, Neill, Tidwell, Johnson, and others. New Orleans, Pelican Pub. Co. [1961].Places
- Brimfield (Mass.) (Place of Birth)
- Wilkinson County (Miss.) (Place of Death)
- United States (Associated Country)
Found in 2 Collections and/or Records:
Ebenezer and Gorham Parsons papers
Collection Identifier: Mss:733 1779-1829 P267Ebenezer Parsons (1746-1819) and his son Gorham Parsons (1768-1844) were merchants in Boston who traded commodities like hemp and iron in the United States, Europe, Russia, South America, and the West Indies. The Ebenezer and Gorham Parsons papers consist of letters and shipping and financial records related to mercantile and privateering ventures, dated 1779 to 1829.