James Greenleaf (June 9, 1765 – September 17, 1843) was a late 18th and early 19th century American land speculator responsible for the development of Washington, D.C., after the city was designated as the nation's capital following passage of the Residence Act in 1790. A member of a prominent and wealthy Boston family, he married a Dutch noblewoman, who he later abandoned and then divorced, and served briefly as consul at the United States embassy in Amsterdam.
After his return to the United States, Greenleaf engaged in land speculation in Washington, D.C., New York state, and other areas. His land business collapsed in 1797, and he spent a year in debtor's prison. He married a wealthy Pennsylvania heiress after his release, and spent the remainder of his life in genteel poverty, fending off lawsuits.
Early life and education Greenleaf was born on June 9, 1765, in Boston, Massachusetts to William and Mary (Brown) Greenleaf. Clark, Greenleaf and Law in the Federal City, p. 211. Accessed October 29, 2012. Greenleaf, p. 101. Accessed October 29, 2012. He was the 12th of 15 children. His father William Greenleaf was a merchant who was appointed Sheriff of Suffolk County, Massachusetts during the American Revolutionary War.Roberts, et al., p. 407. Accessed October 29, 2012.
Greenleaf was a member of the committee of correspondence, which communicated secretly with other cities regarding British policy and military actions and was a core base of support for the American Revolution. Greenleaf, p. 91. Accessed October 29, 2012. In July 1776, following the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Greenleaf announced American independence from the balcony of the Old State House in Boston. Among the crowd assembled for the announcement in Boston were John Quincy Adams and William Cranch. Adams was later elected President of the United States; Cranch was appointed as Chief Justice of the U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Columbia and the second Reporter of Decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court. The Greenleafs were Huguenots who fled France for England, seeking to escape religious persecution. They anglicized their family name of Feuillevert to Greenleaf. Greenleaf's great-grandfather Edmund was born in 1574, in Ipswich in Suffolk, England. His great-grandfather Stephen was born there in 1628. The entire family emigrated to Newbury, Massachusetts in 1635. Greenleaf, p. 71, 78-70. Accessed October 29, 2012.
The Greenleaf family was among the best connected in early American history. Greenleaf's sister Rebecca married Noah Webster, who compiled the first American dictionary. Another of his sisters married Nathaniel Appleton, the minister and trustee of Harvard University. His sister Margaret married Thomas Dawes, a member of the Massachusetts Governor's Council, and his sister Abigail married William Cranch. The family's descendants also played a large role in American literature. The poet John Greenleaf Whittier was descended from James' great-grandfather Stephen. The 20th century poet T. S. Eliot was a descendant of Abigail Greenleaf Cranch.Snyder, p. 87. However, little is known about Greenleaf's early life or education. In 1781, when he was 16, his father retired from business and the Greenleaf family moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts.
Career In 1788, Greenleaf left Massachusetts and moved to Philadelphia, where Noah Webster introduced him to businessman James Watson.Kendall, p. 142. The two men established an import business, Watson & Greenleaf, with offices in Philadelphia and New York City.Clark, Records of the Columbia Historical Society, p. 214. Accessed October 30, 2012.
After his business was incorporated, Greenleaf traveled to the Netherlands in the mid to late 1780s, where he tried to sell American bonds.Livermore, p. 164, fn. 66. According to John Quincy Adams, who was in Amsterdam at the same time, Greenleaf rented a magnificent mansion and immediately began circulating in high society in the city. Greenleaf was in Amsterdam from January 31, 1789, through August 1793, where he conducted business with Daniel Crommelin & Sons, a major Dutch investment banking house marketing American bonds.Livermore, p. 164-165, fn. 66. He sold nearly two million bonds during this time and $160,000 worth of stock in the Bank of the United States, a central bank established by the U.S. federal government.Livermore, p. 165, fn. 66. He amassed a fortune worth $1 million, a very large sum at the time.Roberts and Schmidt, p. 15.Berg, p. 206.Historian Joshua Kendall estimates his net worth at the time as $1.3 million, or about $400 million in 2010 inflation-adjusted dollars. See: Kendall, p. 165.
Washington, D.C. land speculation
Greenleaf arrived in Washington, D.C., on September 17, 1793 and was present at the laying of the cornerstone of the United States Capitol the following day, on September 18, 1793 at which time Greenleaf met President George Washington.Morris, p. 118.
Greenleaf quickly ingratiated himself with several of Washington's closest friends, including Tobias Lear, who served as Washington's secretary from 1785 to June 1793.Syrett and Cooke, p. 16, fn. 2. Greenleaf provided seed money for Lear's mercantile venture, Tobias Lear & Co., in 1793.Bryan, p. 221. Greenleaf also associated with Thomas Johnson, who Washington had appointed as one of three commissioners of the District of Columbia. Greenleaf purchased of Johnson's land in Frederick County, Maryland for $14,000 in September 1793.Arnebeck, "Tracking the Speculators ...", p. 116.
The Residence Act of 1790, which established the site for the nation's capital, provided for the appointment of three commissioners by the President without the need for Senate confirmation to govern the Washington, D.C., survey its land, purchase property from private landowners, and construct federal buildings.Pinheiro, p. 212. On September 23, 1793, Greenleaf purchased 3,000 city lots from the commissioners.Clark, Records of the Columbia Historical Society, p. 216. Accessed October 30, 2012. The city offered him the lots at $66.50 each,Royster, p. 358.Warren and Brownson, p. 56. a significant discount from the going price of $200 to $300 per lot. To secure this below market price, Greenleaf was required to construct 70 homes on the lots before 1800, not sell any of the land before 1796, and lend the commissioners $2,200 a month until certain public buildings were constructed.Bowling, p. 104. To raise money to improve the lots, Greenleaf executed a power of attorney on November 2, 1793, with Sylvanus Bourne, the American vice consul in Amsterdam. Bourne, who served as vice consul in Amsterdam under Greenleaf, was empowered to sell lots or obtain mortgages on them. Clark, Greenleaf and Law in the Federal City, p. 82. Accessed October 29, 2012.
On November 19, 1793, Greenleaf moved into the Pearl Street home of Noah Webster in New York City.Kendall, p. 172.
The September 23 agreement with the commissioners was superseded by a subsequent agreement on December 24, 1793, with Greenleaf and his new business partner, Robert Morris. Morris was a Philadelphia merchant and one of 56 signatories to the Declaration of Independence and also to the Articles of Confederation and the United States Constitution. He was Chairman of the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety during the Revolutionary War, a delegate to the Second Continental Congress, and was appointed Superintendent of Finance for the U.S. Next to General George Washington, Morris was considered "the most powerful man in America."Rappleye, p. 252. At the time he became Greenleaf's business partner, Morris also was one of Pennsylvania's original U.S. senators (his term ended in 1795).
Morris and Nicholson partnership
Greenleaf first approached his existing business partner, James Watson, with an offer to finance the purchase of the lots and the construction on them. Watson declined, and Greenleaf dissolved their partnership.Clark, Records of the Columbia Historical Society, p. 217. Accessed October 30, 2012. Greenleaf then turned to Morris, then the richest man in America and a speculator in millions of acres of land.
Morris was already one of the most important land speculators in the Northeast. He purchased the western portion of the Phelps and Gorham Purchase.Under its royal provincial charter of October 7, 1691, Massachusetts had a legal claim to all land to its west extending as far west as Lake Erie. To settle this claim, the states of New York and Massachusetts signed the Treaty of Hartford of 1786 in which the title to the land was awarded to New York. However, Massachusetts had the right to sell the land, not New York. In April 1788, Oliver Phelps and Nathaniel Gorham agreed to purchase a section of this land, known as the Phelps and Gorham Purchase, for £300,000. They held bonds issued by the state worth £1.5 million, but the bonds had devalued by four fifths since their issuance. Phelps and Gorham purchased of land from the Iroquois in 1788, which included all land south and west of the northern tip of Lake Seneca, south to the Pennsylvania border and west to Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. Phelps and Gorham were only able to obtain title from the Iroquois to of land between Lake Seneca and about the 78 degrees west latitude. an area of western New York consisting of about —in March 1791 for $366,333.33.Chernow, p. 61. This area became known as Morris Reserve. Morris quickly sold of the reserve to The Pulteney Association in March 1791 for £75,000 for a profit of $216,128.Chernow, p. 54-55. This tract became known as the "Pulteney Tract".
Morris' association with Greenleaf started in February 1792, when Morris sold of the Morris Reserve to Greenleaf, Watson, and Andrew Craigie for £15,000 ($37,500).Chernow, p. 71. Morris sold another to the Holland Land Company between December 1792 and July 1793 for £112,500, and his son sold to the Holland Land Company for $500,000.Chernow, p. 64-65. Morris sold another (known as "the Triangle Tract") to an investor group in January 1793.In September 1797, Morris secured title to all these lands from the Iroquois by negotiating the Treaty of Big Tree. He in turn passed the title on to the various purchasers of his land. Fixico, p. 76. By 1794, Morris was also an investor in the Virginia Yazoo Company, which was leveraging its political influence to purchase vast tracts of land from the state of Georgia (in what is the modern state of Mississippi) at low prices for land speculation.Markham, p. 103.
Greenleaf and Morris purchased 6,000 lots under the same conditions as the September agreement.Abbot, et al., p. 16. At least 1,500 of these lots were required to be in the northeast quadrant of Washington, D.C., but Greenleaf could take his pick of lots anywhere else in the city for the remainder. The monthly loan to the commissioners also increased to $2,660 per commissioner per month. An additional clause required that the 6,000 lots include 428.5 lots on Buzzard Point owned by Notley Young, a plantation owner in Prince George's County, Maryland, and 220 lots on Buzzard Point owned by Daniel Carroll, a Founding Father and Maryland landowner whose plantation became part of the District of Columbia. Clark, Greenleaf and Law in the Federal City, p. 68, 71. Accessed November 24, 2012. The contract also included provisions identical to those in the September 23 contract, which required no down payment, did not require the first payment until May 1, 1794, required only annual payments of one-sixth of the total amount of the purchase price annually thereafter, and did not impose any interest. Clark, Greenleaf and Law in the Federal City, p. 67. Accessed November 24, 2012. With these transactions, Greenleaf and his co-investors controlled about half the federal government's sellable land in Washington, D.C.Kendall, p. 171.