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.
Biography
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.
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. 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.
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.
Leavitt also owned and operated the Fulton Street Ferry, until popular sentiment against Leavitt's large monopolies put an end to his ownership. In 1843, Leavitt financed construction of an elegant mansion in Brooklyn Heights, which he sold a decade later to Henry C. Bowen. (The Leavitt-Bowen Mansion was demolished in 1904). During this time, Brooklyn Heights was the residence of increasing numbers of New York City's most prominent merchants.