Thomas William Lawson

Thomas William Lawson (1857–1925) was an American financier and writer. Born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, he began as an office boy in a Boston bank, made and lost several fortunes in stocks and copper, and at the peak of his wealth built the estate of Dreamwold and commissioned the only seven-masted schooner ever launched, named for himself. In 1904 he turned on his former associates with Frenzied Finance, a magazine exposé of the Amalgamated Copper promotion and the "System" that controlled Wall Street. His novel Friday, the Thirteenth (1907) dramatized the same themes. He died nearly penniless.