Joshua Fisher

Joshua Fisher (1707 – February 1, 1783) was a prominent Philadelphia merchant involved in transatlantic trade and mapmaking as applied to nautical charts. He made the first nautical chart of the Delaware River and Delaware Bay, and established the first merchant packet line between London and Philadelphia. Early years Fisher was born in Sussex County, Delaware, into a Quaker family with historic roots, growing up in Lewes, Delaware. His father, Thomas Fisher (1669–1713), and mother, Margery Maud (1671–1770), were both Quakers, as were his grandparents. Margery Maud was a stepdaughter of Dr. Thomas Wynne. His grandfather, John Fisher, came to America aboard the "Welcome" with William Penn. Fisher was enterprising, and taught himself mathematics and mechanics. He married (July 27, 1733) a neighbor's daughter, Sarah Rowland, the granddaughter of Mary Harworth, an eloquent Friends minister who had also arrived on the "Welcome". Establishing a business Fisher settled in Lewes, Delaware, near Cape Henlopen, regularly attending Quaker Meeting. He learned to make hats from animal skins, started a hat-making business, and established an active trade with the local Indians in pelts of beaver and other small animals. He developed a transatlantic trade and sold many pelts to customers in England. In Lewes he opened a large inn and country store, which was frequented by many pilots and ship captains because Lewes was the first port at the mouth of Delaware Bay and a good location to learn about the channel to Philadelphia. Fisher gave the pilots advice about how to navigate Delaware Bay, which was notorious for its many shoals. He was appointed by Thomas Penn to be Deputy Surveyor General of Delaware. Family farm Fisher's father Thomas owned a property that included a farm, and another property at Cool Spring, west of Lewes, that included a farm house constructed in the Dutch style with a gambrel roof. When his father died in 1713, Fisher inherited the properties, ran them profitably for two decades, and in 1736 sold the Cool Spring property to Rev. James Martin, a pastor of nearby Presbyterian churches, whose descendants held the property for two centuries. In 1980, the Fisher-Martin house was moved to downtown Lewes, where it currently houses the Chamber of Commerce information center.