Early Life
Dummer was born in Boston, the capital of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, to Jeremiah Dummer, the first American born silversmith, and Anna Atwater. His grandfather was Richard Dummer, an early Massachusetts settler and one of the colony's wealthiest men, and he was also related to the magistrate Samuel Sewall.
Little is known of William's early years. Given the family's wealth, he probably attended the Boston Latin School. His younger brother Jeremiah was educated at Harvard and then at Leiden and Utrecht. Details are not known, but the family wealth and William's later interest in education suggest that he was also well educated.
In 1702 Dummer was elected to the membership of Boston's Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company. He went to England, most likely in the early 1700s, where he joined the family's merchant business. He returned to Massachusetts in 1712. He married Katherine Dudley, daughter of Massachusetts Governor Joseph Dudley, on April 26, 1714. In a gift that may have been made in anticipation of his wedding, his father in November 1712 gave him a substantial tract of land in the Byfield section of Newbury. The property became the couple's country home. Dummer divided his time between the Newbury property and the family home in Boston.
Upon the death of Queen Anne in 1714, commissions issued during her reign were set to expire. This resulted in a political scramble for appointments to the leadership of Massachusetts between Dudley's supporters and proponents of a land bank proposal intended to deal with inflationary issuance of colonial currency. Dummer's brother Jeremiah was in London representing the Dudley faction. Although he was unable to secure Dudley's reappointment, he and Jonathan Belcher were able to bribe the successor chosen by the land bank faction, Elizeus Burges, to give up his commission. The commission for governor was finally issued in June 1716 to Samuel Shute, a land bank opponent, with William Dummer as lieutenant governor. Shute arrived in the colony the following October, at which time both assumed their offices.
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