Otis | |
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Current region | New England United States East Coast |
Earlier spellings | Otis, Oates, Otties, Oattis |
Place of origin | Kingdom of England (now part of the United Kingdom) |
Members | James Otis Jr. Mercy Otis Warren Harrison Gray Otis (Senator) Harrison Gray Otis (General) Samuel Eliot Morison Amelia Earhart |
Estate(s) | Harrison Gray Otis House |
The Otis family is a Boston Brahmin family from Massachusetts best known for its involvement in early American politics.
The family was originally landowning farmers of Glastonbury, Somerset, the Otises went to New England during the Puritan migration of the 1630s settling first in Hingham before finally moving to Barnstable. It was there that John Otis built a homestead that served many members of the family for generations. Although not much is known about John Otis, his son, John Otis (generally referred to as "Judge Otis") was the first of the family to rise to provincial eminence. Judge Otis held a variety of judicial and military appointments and represented Barnstable County for 20 successive years in the general court of Massachusetts Bay. In 1708, he was chosen a member of Her Majesty's Council (at the time, the highest position a native could achieve) and was annually reelected until his death in 1727. He left six children, of whom the following are descendants: [1]
Harrison Gray Otis was a Union Army officer during the American Civil War who later became president and general manager of the Times Mirror Company, then the publisher of the Los Angeles Times.
Samuel Eliot Morison was an American historian noted for his works of maritime history and American history that were both authoritative and popular. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1912, and taught history at the university for 40 years. He won Pulitzer Prizes for Admiral of the Ocean Sea (1942), a biography of Christopher Columbus, and John Paul Jones: A Sailor's Biography (1959). In 1942, he was commissioned to write a history of United States naval operations in World War II, which was published in 15 volumes between 1947 and 1962. Morison wrote the popular Oxford History of the American People (1965), and co-authored the classic textbook The Growth of the American Republic (1930) with Henry Steele Commager.
Samuel Allyne Otis was the first Secretary of the United States Senate, serving for its first 25 years. He also served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives and was a delegate to the Confederation Congress in 1787 and 1788.
The Hartford Convention was a series of meetings from December 15, 1814, to January 5, 1815, in Hartford, Connecticut, United States, in which New England leaders of the Federalist Party met to discuss their grievances concerning the ongoing War of 1812 and the political problems arising from the federal government's increasing power.
Harrison Gray Otis, was a businessman, lawyer, and politician, becoming one of the most important leaders of the United States' first political party, the Federalists. He was a member of the Otis family.
Norton Prentiss Otis was a U.S. Representative from New York.
James Otis Sr. (1702–1778) was a prominent lawyer in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. His sons James Otis Jr. and Samuel Allyne Otis also rose to prominence, as did his daughter Mercy Otis Warren. He was often called "Colonel James" because of his military rank and also to distinguish between him and his famous son. He was a stalwart member of the Popular Party, as was his son, in Boston, Massachusetts.
Harrison Gray (1711–1794) was a wealthy merchant, as well as Treasurer and Receiver-General for the Province of Massachusetts Bay, a position that he held from 1753 until the beginning of the Revolution. Although more of a political moderate, in 1774, Gray was forced to choose between patriotism and loyalism over the Massachusetts Government Act. Gray chose to recognize the right of the King and Parliament to suspend, at will, the rights and liberties of Massachusetts Bay.
Otis is a surname of English origin and may have been a variant spelling of the English name Oates.
James Otis was a Republican member of the New York State Senate and a society leader during the Gilded Age.