Isaac Roosevelt

Who was Isaac Roosevelt?

Isaac Roosevelt was an American merchant and Federalist politician. He served in the New York State Assembly and the state Constitutional Convention and achieved the most political success of any Roosevelt before Theodore Roosevelt. Isaac was the patrilineal great-great-grandfather of the President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Roosevelt was born in New York City and baptized in the Reformed Dutch Church of New York. A member of the Roosevelt family, he was a son of Jacobus Roosevel, grandson of Nicholas Roosevelt, and great-grandson of the Dutch immigrant Claes Maartenszen Van Rosenvelt. He was one of the first large-scale sugar refiners in New York City. He built one of the first sugar refineries in the city and originally had his store on Wall Street, later removing to St. George's Square.

"Isaac Roosevelt is removed from his house in Wall Street to the house of his late brother, Jacobus Roosevelt, Jr., deceased, near the Sugar house, and opposite to Mr. William Waltons, being on the northwest side of Queen Street, where his customers may be supplied as usual with double, middling and single refined loaf sugars, clarified, muscovado and other molasses, & etc." - April 25, 1772