Peter Paul Francis Degrand (ca. 1780–1855), merchant and broker, was a native of Marseille, France. In around 1803 he moved to Boston, where he clerked in a countinghouse. Degrand became a partner in a mercantile firm in 1807 but continued independently in the commission business the next year. He established and edited the Boston Weekly Report of Public Sales and of Arrivals, 1819–28. From 1825 through 1834 he was a member of the Boston firm of Degrand & Smith, and for much of that time he also operated in Philadelphia as a broker. Degrand was a founder in 1834 and served as president of the Boston Stock Exchange, 1837–39. He was a key supporter of the Western Railroad from Boston to Albany from its inception in the 1830s, and in 1850 he unsuccessfully petitioned the United States Congress for a charter to establish a rail and telegraph line from Saint Louis to San Francisco. Degrand died in Boston (Boston Gazette, 6 Apr. 1807; Boston Independent Chronicle, 6 Oct. 1808; Brigham, American Newspapers description begins Clarence S. Brigham, History and Bibliography of American Newspapers, 1690–1820, 1947, 2 vols. description ends , 1:349–50; Boston Patriot & Mercantile Advertiser, 4 July 1825, 16 Nov. 1827; Philadelphia National Gazette and Literary Register, 13 Mar. 1827; Charles M. Wiltse and others, eds., The Papers of Daniel Webster: Correspondence [1974–86], 2:327; Desilver’s Philadelphia Directory and Stranger’s Guide, for 1833 [1833], 52; Boston Daily Advertiser & Patriot, 8 Jan. 1835; The Boston Stock Exchange [1893], n.p.; George Bliss, Historical Memoir of the Western Railroad [1863], esp. 153; JS description begins Journal of the Senate of the United States description ends , 41:71, 81, 178, 408–9 [14, 15 Jan., 27 Feb., 19 June 1850]; Boston Daily Advertiser, 25 Dec. 1855; Suffolk Co., Mass., Probate Records, vol. 154, part 1, pp. 9–12).

For TJ’s favor of 3 June 1823 to Degrand, not found, see TJ to Dodge & Oxnard, 3 June 1823, and note.