David Leavitt (banker)

David Leavitt (August 29, 1791 – December 30, 1879) was an early New York City banker and financier. As president of the American Exchange Bank of New York during the Financial Panic of 1837 he represented bondholders of the nascent Illinois and Michigan Canal, allowing completion of the historic canal linking the Midwest with the East Coast. For his role in helping prevent the collapse of the canal scheme, Chicago authorities named Leavitt Street after the financier. 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.

David Leavitt was born in Bethlehem, Connecticut on August 29, 1791, to merchant and Connecticut legislator David Leavitt Sr. and his wife Lucy (Clark) Leavitt. 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.

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. He decided to go it alone.

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.

In his 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.

...
Wikipedia