Dahl, Peter
Also known as Peter Ibsen Dahl. Business associates included Saabye, Hans Rudolph; Cramer, Laurentius Johannes; House of Black & Co. and Ryberg, Niels (Eliassen, 59)
Born 1747 in Norway in the parish of Fjære on the South Coast (Eliassen, 2006, 51). Died around 1795 (Larsen Ostindiske Personalia). Eliassen writes that he dies in 1789.
Family
Father: Eskedahl, Anders Madsen, a shipbuilder and farmer (Eliassen, 51)
Mother: ?. She died in 1764 (Eliassen, 52)
Siblings: Dahl, Anders; Dahl, Mads Christophersen; Dahl, Marthe
Never married. He did, however, have a long-standing relationship with Felgentreber, Anne Christine. They had three daughters together, Marie Cathrine Elisabeth Felgentreber, born in Juli 1781; Marie Friderica Felgentreber who was born in August 1784 and Petrine Felgentreber, who was born in August 1789, 4 months after Peter Dahl died. Peter Dahl recognized his daughters, but never legitimized them. He provided for the three girls and Felgentreber, Anne Christine (Eliassen, 63)
Timeline
1768 - Second-in-command of the frigate FRIHEDEN under skipper Scott, Robert (Eliassen, 53)
1770 - Claimed to have "sailed various seas for 14 years" (Eliassen, 53)
1770 - Naturalized as borger (skipper) on 2nd of April (Larsen Ostindiske Personalia)
1770 - In command of the ship FRIHEDEN that sailed to the West Indies. This journey he repeated at least four times in the following years (Eliassen, 53)
1775 - Sailed as kaptajn on board the ship MINERVA to the East Indies on one of the first partikulær-skibe, i.e. privately funded ships to India (Larsen Ostindiske Personalia). Alongside Peter Dahl was fellow Norwegian Bie, Ole who was appointed the head of the factory in Serampore, and the two men sailed together from Trankebar to Bengal (Eliassen, 56). Bie, Ole and Peter Dahl were both in financial partnership with Coninck, Frédéric de for this journey of the MINERVA (Eliassen, 56). Could this be the ship that brought the partnership between Peter Dahl and Coninck, Frédéric de a small fortune of 700,000 rigsdaler on one return cargo? (Rasch, VGT 7, 48)
1777 - Arrived to Copenhagen from the return journey from India (Larsen Ostindiske Personalia)
1777 - Engaged in a partnership with Bolte, Henrich "for a number of expeditions to the East Indies" (Elissen, 53)
1778-80 - Round trip to India (Larsen Ostindiske Personalia).
1781 - Arrived in India on board the ship CHRISTIANSSTÆD/CHRISTIANSSTED, where he subsequently settled for some time (Eliassen, 54)
1781-83 - Spent a year and a half living in Bengal, where he directed almost all trade during the Danish-Norwegian neutrality in the war of 1776-1783. He was named resident merchant (Eliassen, 54, 56). Eliassen writes that "As a resident merchant, the only one of his kind at that time, he could buy and sell goods after the sailing season was over in the autumn, and before the East Indiamen arrived from Europe in the summer. In this way, he could exploit the market forces of availability and demand, selling European goods when prices were high and buying Indian wares (mostly textiles) when prices were low, building up a stock for export in the low season. This secured both a quick turnaround of the ships sent out to India by his partner Henrik Bolte, and maximum profits, both on the European and Indian cargoes" (Eliassen, 56). It seems inevitable that whilst Peter Dahl was in India, in Bengal, he must have met Duntzfelt, Christian Wilhelm who worked for the Asiatic Company then as kopist before D. set out to Copenhagen in 1788.
1782-84 - Round trip to India, where Peter Dahl was co-financing the journey as medreder. Kaptajn on the ship CHRISTIANSSTED (Larsen Ostindiske Personalia)
1783 - Returned to Denmark on board the ship LAURVIG, which carried goods of a value close to 1 million rigsdaler (Eliassen, 58). At this time, his net fortune totalled around 400,000 Rigsdaler, making him a very wealthy man (Eliassen, 59)
1786 - Spent some time in Arendal (Eliassen, 53)
1786 - Elected member of the Royal Norwegian Society of Trondheim, through sponsorship by Treschow, Herman (Eliassen, 60)
1786-87 - Served as an expert on the Commercial College's commission on the East Indian trade (Eliassen, 59)
According to Eliassen, Peter Dahl was "infamous (and disliked) among his crew for his stinginess in providing them with necessities", which Dahl himself referred to as his "Oeconomie" as a skipper (Eliassen, 54). This Eliassen argues could explain why hs crews usually consisted of all-new sailors etc. (Eliassen, 54)
Saabye, Hans Rudolph were close friends, and shared a box at the Garnisonskirke as well as lived next door to one another in Amaliegade (Eliassen, 61)
Property
Around 1770, he had an official address in Strandgade, opposite the Asiatic Company headquarters, which he maintained throughout the 1770s. At some point in 1775, however, he actually lived in a lodging-house in Sundbyvester, before he sailed to the East Indies (Eliassen, 58). Around 1786, he rented an apartment in Frederiksstaden, in Amaliegade (matrikulis no. 71), where he lived in 1787, at the time of the second census of Copenhagen (link to Folketælling, Copenhagen, 1787). At Amaliegade 71, he lived with eight other people: a litteratus (an educated man, a teacher), a female housekeeper, two female servants, a male servant, a male gaardskarl, as well as two enslaved black men (referred to as negere) Folketælling, Copenhagen, 1787). The two enslaved men had been brought to Copenhagen from Bengal, where Peter Dahl also gave them their freedom. The two young men, Benedictus, Joseph who was 20 years old in 1787 and Pius, Isaak who was 18 years old in 1787 (both from "Mosambik", were both baptised at Garnisonskirken in Copenhagen, by Treschow, Herman (Eliassen, 63). The two freed men then were taken on as apprentices as shipbuilders in the naval dockyard at Holmen (Eliassen, 63). In 1788, following the bankruptcy of Bolte, Henrich, Peter Dahl bought Bolte's mansion in Gothersgade, then and now known as Baron Bolten's Gaard. Dahl had the mansion redecorated and refurbished, and he died there in 1789, only 41 years old (Eliassen, 59)
