Pierre Abraham Lorillard

Pierre Abraham Lorillard (1742 – 1776) was a French-American tobacconist who founded the business which developed into the Lorillard Tobacco Company, which claimed to be the oldest tobacco firm in the United States and in the world. His name is also sometimes given as Peter Abraham Lorillard, Peter Lorillard and Pierre Lorillard I.

Early life Pierre Abraham Lorillard was born in Montbéliard (France) in 1742, the son of Jean Lorillard (b. 1707) and Anne Catherine Rossel. He had five brothers, Jean George, George David, Charles Christophe, Jean Abraham, and Leopold Frederick, and a sister, Anne Marguerite.

The naturalization recorded in New York on April 21, 1762, of 'Peter Louillard', a stocking weaver and French Protestant, is probably that of Lorillard. This followed the naturalization on October 27, 1760, of John George Lorillard, described as a French Protestant yeoman of New York City.

Career Lorillard set out in business in about 1760 with a snuff-grinding factory in a rented house on Chatham Street, now Park Row, in Lower Manhattan. He was the first man to make snuff in North America.

Lorillard's sons George and Peter (or Pierre) took over his business in 1792,

Personal life Lorillard married Catherine Moore, sister of Blazius Moore, and they lived at Hackensack, New Jersey. Lorillard and Moore obtained a marriage license on August 19, 1763, when another marriage license was granted to John Lorillard and Hannah Moore, suggesting that Hannah and Catherine may have been sisters. Blazius Lorillard (b. June 7, 1769) Johann Jacob Lorillard (b. January 19, 1772 Jacob Lorillard (b. May 22, 1774, d. 1836) Married Anna Margaretta Kunze and had ten children including: Emily who married Lewis G. Morris and Eliza, who married Nathaniel Platt Bailey.

Death Lorillard died in 1776, during the American Revolutionary War, killed by Hessian mercenaries of the British during the British occupation of New York City. After his death, his business was carried on by his descendants and grew into the Lorillard Tobacco Company. In 1960, the company issued a Bicentennial Report, in which it was able to boast proudly that "P. Lorillard Company is older than the United States, taking its origin in the Colonial days of 1760 when British kings ruled the land... Lorillard is the oldest tobacco company in the world". After Lorillard's death, his widow married a man named either John Holsman or Daniel Holtzman.