James Leal Greenleaf
| James Leal Greenleaf | |
|---|---|
| Born |
July 30, 1857 Kortright, New York, U.S. |
| Died | April 15, 1933 (aged 75) Stamford, Connecticut, U.S. |
| Occupation | landscape architect, civil engineer, painter |
| Spouse(s) | Bertha Potts Greenleaf |
| Children | Donald Leal Greenleaf |
| Parent(s) | Thomas and Eleanor (Leal) Greenleaf |
James Leal Greenleaf (July 30, 1857 – April 15, 1933) was an American landscape architect and civil engineer. Early in his career, he was a well-known landscape architect who designed the gardens and grounds of many large estates in Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York. He was appointed to the United States Commission of Fine Arts in 1918, and served until 1927. He was the landscape architect for the Lincoln Memorial (finished in 1922), and a consulting landscape architect for the Arlington Memorial Bridge (designed in 1925 and finished in 1932).
Greenleaf was born in 1857 in Kortright, New York. His father, Thomas Greenleaf, was a member of the prominent Greenleaf merchant family, but had retired to Kortright due to failing health. His mother, Eleanor Leal, was of Dutch and Scottish descent. He was the fourth of five children, and the only son, born to Thomas and Eleanor. The Greenleafs were Huguenots who fled France, anglicizing their family name (Feuillevert) to Greenleaf. Greenleaf's great-great-great-great-grandfather, Edmund, was born in 1574 in Ipswich, Suffolk, England. His great-great-grandfather, Enoch, was born there in 1647, and the entire family emigrated to Salisbury, Connecticut, in 1650. His great-grandfather, Thomas, was the founder and editor of Greenleaf's New Daily Advertiser. He was a distant relative of James Greenleaf, the infamous Washington, D.C., land speculator and whose sister married Noah Webster (whose newspaper later merged with the New Daily Advertiser). Greenleaf later credited his childhood in the Catskill Mountains for giving him a love of landscape architecture.
His father's wealth enabled Greenleaf to be educated at Delaware Academy in Delhi, New York. He entered the School of Mines at Columbia University, graduating with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering in 1880. After graduation, Greenleaf was hired by the United States Census to engage in a two-year survey of water power. He worked primarily in the areas around Niagara Falls, the Mississippi River, and in Alabama.
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