David Leavitt Jr. (August 29, 1791 – December 30, 1879) was an American industrialist, banker, and financier. As president of the American Exchange Bank of New York during the Financial Panic of 1837A Brief Popular Account of All the Financial Panics and Commercial Revulsions in the United States, Members of the New York Press, J.C. Haney, New York, 1857 he represented bondholders of the nascent Illinois and Michigan Canal, allowing completion of the historic canal linking the Midwest with the East Coast.Canals for a Nation: The Canal Era in the United States, 1790–1860, Ronald E. Shaw, The University Press of Kentucky, 1990 .
For his role in helping prevent the collapse of the canal scheme, Chicago authorities named Leavitt Street after the financier.Chicago: Its History and Its Builders, Vol. III, J. Seymour Currey, S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, Chicago, Ill., 1918 Leavitt was also an early art collector, and many of the artist Emanuel Leutze's paintings, including that of Washington at Valley Forge, were initially in Leavitt's collection housed at his Great Barrington, Massachusetts estate.Mrs. Hopkins's Recent Art Purchase, from the San Francisco Bulletin, The New York Times, December 18, 1881
Biography
David Leavitt was born in Bethlehem, Connecticut on August 29, 1791, to merchant and Connecticut legislatorRoll of State Officers and Members of General Assembly of Connecticut from 1776 to 1881, Published by Order of the General Assembly, Press of Case, Lockwood and Brainard, Hartford, 1881 David Leavitt Sr.History of Ancient Woodbury, Connecticut, from the First Indian Deed in 1659 to 1854, William Cothren, Bronson Brothers, Waterbury, Conn., 1854 and his wife Lucy (Clark) Leavitt.Banker David Leavitt Jr.'s grandfather had moved to Litchfield County, Connecticut, from Hingham, Massachusetts in the early eighteenth century. His son David Leavitt II served as private in Capt. Thomas Bull's Company of Major Elisha Sheldon's Regiment, Connecticut Light Horse, from September to December 1776. The ambitious David Leavitt Jr. left rural Connecticut in 1813 at age 22 for New York City, where he began his career as a clerk in a produce and commission house. Three years later Leavitt's father died and, after inheriting a share of the elder Leavitt's estate, the son David Leavitt set himself up as a New York merchant and financier.Joining David Leavitt as New York City merchants were his cousins from Litchfield County, Connecticut, John Wheeler Leavitt and Rufus Leavitt. For a while all three flourished. But ultimately the two Leavitt cousins, who were in business together, were declared insolvent, with David Leavitt left as one of their primary creditors. John Wheeler Leavitt was the grandfather of American portrait painter Cecilia Beaux.
By 1815, Leavitt had gone into business with David Lee at 133 Front Street in Manhattan in the firm of Leavitt & Lee, wholesalers in the grocery business. By 1820 Leavitt & Lee had moved to 127 Front Street, and shortly afterwards the two partners dissolved their business. Leavitt left the grocery business and decided to set himself up as a financier.Annual Report of the Corporation of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York, Press of the Chamber of Commerce, New York, 1896 He decided to go it alone.The Old Merchants of New York City, Walter Barrett, Published by Carleton, New York, 1866
In one of Leavitt's first transactions, he bought an entire cargo of tea which the merchant John Jacob Astor had imported. When the German immigrant Astor inquired of Leavitt how he intended to pay for the cargo, Leavitt produced from his pocket a handful of notes written by Astor on his account, which Leavitt had bought up on the street.David Leavitt, obituary, The New York Times, December 31, 1879
In Leavitt's next large transactions, the 25-year-old Leavitt again demonstrated his business acumen. The government of Colombia, facing a conflict at home, had paid a group of New York merchants to build a warship and equip it with armaments for use by the South American nation. Ultimately, those building the vessel were unable to complete the transaction, and Leavitt stepped in, paying for the ship's construction, and assuring that the United States government would help arm it with munitions. Leavitt then took command of the vessel, sailing it to South America, where the Colombian government paid him $100,000 in Colombian currency, and an additional $100,000 in a London bank draft.
On his way home, Leavitt stopped in Havana, where he converted the Colombian currency into Spanish doubloons, which he converted back into dollars when demand for doubloons soared. The London bank draft finally cleared in its entirety after several years' delay, during which Leavitt bided his time instead of selling the draft at a discount. The entire transaction had netted Leavitt a tidy profit, which he invested in other ventures.
In 1823, a local businessman had established a manufactory for white lead in the emerging city of Brooklyn.History of American Manufactures from 1608 to 1860, J. Leander Bishop, Reissued by Kessinger Publishing, 2006 Acting as a lender to the business from its inception, Leavitt stepped in to take control in 1825 and founded the Brooklyn White Lead Company, later Dutch Boy Paint. Much of Leavitt's wealth derived from his early investment in lead manufacturing and importing.The Wealth and Biography of the Wealthy Citizens of the City of New York, Moses Yale Beach, Published at the Sun Office, New York, 1846
Leavitt had already had a home built in Brooklyn, where he took up residence with his wife Maria Clarissa (Lewis), a native of Goshen, Connecticut. At the time of Leavitt's move to Brooklyn, there were only three homes visible from his own, and the New York merchant later bought up large tracts of Brooklyn real estate, and became a trustee of the village of Brooklyn Heights.Portrait Gallery of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York, Catalogue and Biographical Sketches, George Wilson (compiler), Press of the Chamber of Commerce, New York, 1890
Leavitt also owned and operated the Fulton Street Ferry,As owner of the Fulton Street Ferry, and other businesses on the Brooklyn side of the East River, Leavitt often petitioned the Board of Aldermen of New York for various improvements to the piers and waterfront. until popular sentiment against his large monopolies put an end to his ownership. In 1843, he financed construction of an elegant mansion in Brooklyn Heights, which he sold a decade later to Henry C. Bowen.A Covenant with Color: Race and Social Power in Brooklyn, by Craig Steven Wilder, Columbia University Press, 2001 (The Leavitt-Bowen Mansion was demolished in 1904).Old Brooklyn Heights: New York's First Suburb: Including Detailed Analyses of 619 Century-old Houses, Clay Lancaster, Edmund Vincent Gillon, Published by Courier Dover Publications, 1979 During this time, Brooklyn Heights was the residence of increasing numbers of New York City's most prominent merchants.Riches, Class and Power: America Before the Civil War, Edward Pessen, Transaction Publishers, 1990
Seeking to find uses for his accumulated capital, Leavitt entered into several banking ventures. He was elected president of the Fulton Bank of New York City.Portrait Gallery of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York: Catalogue and Biographical Sketches, George Wilson, New York Chamber of Commerce, Press of the Chamber of Commerce, New York, 1890 Later, in 1838, he became president of the American Exchange Bank, a large lending institution headquartered in Manhattan, with which he served for 16 years. During his tenure at American Exchange, there was a financial panic, during which European bondholders of the State of Illinois declared their intention to foreclose on the bonds issuer. "Grave fears were entertained that the bonds would not be paid", wrote The New York Times, "and several financiers had failed in placing them in the European market, but by pledging his own credit, Mr. Leavitt succeeded in creating a degree of confidence in the scheme, and it was a source of pride to him in after years that all the holders of the bonds eventually received both principal and interest." To reassure the bondholders, Leavitt not only advanced his own funds, but traveled to England to meet jittery European stakeholders.
For Leavitt's role in averting the bond collapse, and allowing construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal to the growing city of Chicago, city elders ultimately named Leavitt Street after him.History of Chicago, Alfred Theodore Andreas, The Arno Press, 1884 At the opening of the canal in April 1848, Leavitt – and the only other trustee The Illinois and Michigan Canal: A Study in Economic History, Chicago Historical Society's Collection, Vol. X, James William Putnam, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Ill., 1918 of the canal's bondholders who had personally intervened to float the $1.6 million loan to complete the project – were feted at the opening ceremonies.
Leavitt acted as financier through the decades for other banks and financing packages. He served as Receiver of the North American Trust and Banking Company.Reports of Cases in Law and Equity in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, Vol. XVII, Oliver L. Barbour, Gould, Banks & Co., Albany, N.Y., 1855 In 1857, during another financial panic which swept the markets, Leavitt took to the steps of the American Exchange Bank building, where he addressed depositors, assuring them the institution would meet its obligations and stemming a run on the bank. By 1861, when The Merchants' and Bankers' Almanac was published by Bankers' Magazine, the portrait of David Leavitt, along with those of George Peabody, Albert Gallatin, Erastus Corning, and Stephen Girard, graced the periodical's cover.The Merchants' Magazine and Commercial Review, Isaac Smith Homans, William Buck, Vol. XLIV, 1861
Leavitt later built a estate called Brookside in the Massachusetts Berkshires at Great Barrington, Massachusetts, where he established a gallery for his growing art collection, especially the works of Emanuel Leutze,Washington at Monmouth, American Heritage Magazine, June 1965, Volume 16, issue 4, AmericanHeritage.com from whom Leavitt had commissioned The Battle of Monmouth.Following Leavitt's death, several of the Leutze paintings were bought by Mrs. Mark Hopkins for her collection in San Francisco. Leavitt was also painted in a portrait during his lifetime by the artist Francis Bicknell Carpenter.Artists of the Nineteenth Century and Their Works, Vol. I, Clara Erskine Clement Waters, Houghton, Osgood & Company, Boston, 1879 During his time in Massachusetts, Leavitt was chosen president of the Housatonic Railroad.Report, Connecticut Railroad Commissioners, Annual Report of the Railroad Companies in This State for 1870, Printed by Order of the Legislature, Case, Lockwood & Brainard, Hartford, 1870 At the outbreak of the Civil War, Leavitt was named permanent chairman of Great Barrington's committee to aid the Union effort.History of Great Barrington, Charles James Taylor, Clark W. Bryan & Co., Great Barrington, Mass., 1882 At the meeting, chairman Leavitt "proclaimed himself willing to contribute his means and, if necessary, his person, to the holy cause".The Tenth Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, 1861–1864, Alfred S. Roe, Tenth Regiment Veteran Association, Springfield, Mass., 1909