Low was born on April 13, 1735, at Raritan Landing in Piscataway, Province of New Jersey.[1] He was the son of Cornelius Low Jr. and Johanna (néeGouverneur) Low and the brother of Nicholas Low.[2][3] 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.[4] Low's family was descended from German, Dutch and French Huguenot settlers.[2]
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.[5] He had large real estate holdings, built up sizable trade, and had interests in a slitting mill.[6] Low was chosen as a delegate to the Stamp Act Congress in 1763.[2] 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."[7]
Opposed to armed conflict with the British Crown, Low quit the Patriot cause after the 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, but after collaboration with the British occupation forces in New York, 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.[10]
Low died in Cowes on the Isle of Wight, Great Britain, on July 25, 1791. Although a family tradition holds that his wife joined him, probate records hold that she died in Albany in 1802.[14]
^ abAppleton'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).