Jacob Schieffelin

Introduction

Jacob Schieffelin (born August 24, 1757, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Colony; died April 16, 1835, in New York City, NY), the Philadelphia-born son of a German immigrant businessman engaged in furnishing stores and provisions for the British Army in Canada, was an entrepreneur who moved vigorously into commerce and real estate speculation wherever he found himself. Although Schieffelin served with the British forces during the Revolutionary War, he married a fierce anti-British Quaker, and developed and maintained strong family and business ties with his American in-laws. His complex story of shifting loyalties in an era of fluctuating political, economic, and social boundaries enriches our understanding of the early years of the American Republic and provides insights into how New York City overcame years of British wartime occupation and gradually emerged as an economic engine that helped power the young United States.

Family Background

The Schieffelin family traces its roots back to the thirteenth century. The family possessed a great deal of land in Swabia, a region that is now part of southwestern Germany and northern Switzerland.[1] Jacob Schieffelin’s grandfather, Johann Jacob Schieffelin (1702-1750), visited North America in 1743 while seeking business opportunities on the western side of the Atlantic Ocean.[2] Johann Jacob (1) possessed large properties in Swabia, and his visit and subsequent decision to settle in Philadelphia attest to his desire to seek new business ventures in fields such as land speculation in British North America. His sons, Jacob (2) and George, the father and uncle, respectively, of Jacob Schieffelin (3), arrived in Philadelphia days after their father’s death in 1750 and pursued numerous business opportunities in the maturing colonies.[3]

Johann Jacob (1) married Maria Katharine Answerder on April 24, 1731, and his son, the second Jacob (2), was born in the Duchy of Württemberg (later the Kingdom of Württemberg and now part of the German federal state of Baden-Württemberg) on February 4, 1732.[4] Jacob (2) married Regina Ritzhauer six years after his arrival in Philadelphia on September 16, 1756, at St. Michael’s and Zion Church.[5] His son, Jacob Schieffelin (3), the subject of this biography, was born in Philadelphia on August 24, 1757. Jacob (2) had three other children, all sons: Melchior (1759-1769); Jonathan (1762-1837); and Thomas (1769-1828).[6]

During the Revolutionary War, Jacob Schieffelin (3) married Hannah Lawrence, a member of a long-standing Quaker family who themselves had married into long-standing American families.[7] Jacob (3) established strong business bonds in both trade and real estate with Hannah’s siblings and their spouses. Understanding these links is crucial to appreciating the family’s interrelationships, as well as its impact on New York City.[8] Seven of Jacob and Hannah’s children survived to adulthood, two died young. Of the surviving seven, four (Henry Hamilton, Effingham, Richard Lawrence, and Anna-Marie, represented by her husband Benjamin Ferris) were involved in the family’s commercial and real estate activities.[9]

Business Development

In 1760, ten years after arriving in Philadelphia, Jacob Schieffelin (2) moved his young family to Montreal during the French and Indian War (also known as the Seven Years’ War) soon after it passed into the hands of the British in order to continue his efforts “furnishing stores and provisions” for the British Army.[10] Nine years later, Jacob (2) died in Philadelphia during a business visit, but his family remained in Montreal after his death.[11] In 1770, at age thirteen, Jacob (3) went to work in the store of Lazarus David, a respected Montreal merchant, as a clerk. Five years later, at age eighteen, Schieffelin was enrolled in the Canadian militia raised in Montreal to oppose the American colonists’ 1775 invasion of Canada.[12] The following summer he resigned his clerkship with Lazarus David and made his way southwest, with good references, to the British fort and frontier settlement of Detroit.[13]

Detroit

Soon after arriving in Detroit, and shortly after opening a store that presumably offered general purpose merchandise and groceries, he “suffered a violent fever, with chills and ague.” During the illness he was visited by Governor Henry Hamilton who attended to him, mixing his medicines and otherwise looking after him, and subsequently treating him like a son.[14] In 1777, the British had undertaken a major western offensive using Detroit as a base to recruit and arm Native-American war parties to raid American settlements.[15] Hamilton appointed Schieffelin both secretary of the government and a lieutenant in the Detroit Volunteers, effectively placing him on an equal footing with British Army officers regarding rank and pay.[16] Hamilton also recommended that Schieffelin acquire a business partner to handle day-to-day activities and keep the store running while Schieffelin was away from Detroit on military or government service. On June 28, 1777, Schieffelin entered into partnership with Thomas Smith.[17] The following year, he purchased a house and lot from Theophile Lemay, thus beginning his life-long real estate career.[18]

Contrary to policies that prohibited government officers from engaging in trade with locals, fearing there might arise “an over indulgence to the natives,” records from the Canadian Archives reveal that Schieffelin engaged routinely in business activities during his years in British government and military service.[19] In April 1779, the British sloop H.M. Angelica, en route to the British post at Fort Michillimackinack, jettisoned two trunks of china belonging to Schieffelin in Lake Erie that were worth £856 (approximately £89,700 in 2011£ or $142,000 in 2011$).[20] Around the same time, Schieffelin noted in his journal that he had sustained a wartime loss related to a shipment of animal pelts. [21] At the end of the American Revolution, Schieffelin filed a claim for the lost china with Lieutenant Governor Henry Hamilton of Quebec.[22] This was one of numerous government claims Schieffelin filed during his career to recover losses sustained as a Loyalist during the Revolution and later as an American merchant during the Napoleonic conflict preceding the War of 1812.

In 1778, Governor Hamilton, while stationed in Detroit, initiated a military campaign to reestablish British control over the Illinois country after American forces under George Rogers Clark captured several trade posts and settlements. Hamilton, Schieffelin, and other Loyalist military officers, together with a large body of Native-Americans, marched southwest to Vincennes on October 7, 1778. Schieffelin’s journal entry of this date briefly presented the plan: “The 7^th of October 1778 went on an Expedition against the Illinois, under Governor Hamilton who had instructions from Lord Dartmouth” to continue down the Mississippi and take New Orleans.[23] The expedition reached Vincennes in December, and the local militia surrendered to the British forces. However, Clark returned and surrounded Vincennes, forcing the British to surrender the settlement on February 24, 1779. Historian Gerald O. Haffner describes Clark’s capture of Vincennes as “the most important event in the West during the War for Independence.”[24] The British prisoners, considered a very rich prize, were marched to and imprisoned in Williamsburg, Virginia, from where Schieffelin escaped on April 19, 1780. An account of his escape, “with M. [Philippe Francois Rastel, Sieur de] Rocheblave, late Commandant of Illinois to Little-York,” was published within days of his reaching New York City.[25] After their escape, Schieffelin and Rocheblave spoke French when conversing with Americans they encountered as they made their way north to New York. The ruse helped convince listeners that both men were French, and thus allies of the American revolutionaries, which permitted them to pass unmolested through territories under American control.[26]

Schieffelin and Rocheblave reached New York City on July 9, 1780, and were welcomed to the British-controlled city. Their arrival was reported in the Royal Gazette on July 12.[27] In New York City, Schieffelin met Hannah Lawrence, the daughter of a Quaker family that traced its origins back to seventeenth-century Long Island. Lawrence, considered a local beauty, participated in a writing society and disseminated incendiary poetry against the British occupation under her penname “Matilda.” She personally distributed some of her missives in front of Trinity Church, and was fortunate not to have been caught committing such a treasonous act. It is unclear how the two met but by August 9, a month after he reached the city, Schieffelin was billeted with the Lawrence family, as is noted in Hannah’s “A Journal of Her Lady’s Courtship.”[28] Hannah began the journal on July 20, shortly after she began seeing Schieffelin, and it ended with their marriage on August 13. They were married at the home of Surgeon General John Field by British Army Chaplin Reverend W. John Walter of Boston, having been refused parental and Quaker Meeting permission for the marriage.[29]

On September 15, 1780, Schieffelin and his new wife set sail for Quebec on the Harlequin. [30] After delivering dispatches to General Haldimand in Quebec, Schieffelin planned to return to Detroit where he would “continue as lieutenant, and be employed in the Indian Department if needed.”[31] He arrived in Quebec on October 17, delivered the dispatches two days later, and received a warrant from the paymaster for “328.19 Sterling [approximately £34,000 in 2011£ or $54,400 in 2011$] for my Pay from 24 Sept. 1778 to the 24 Sept. 1780,” as he related in his journal.[32] The back pay covered his service with Hamilton in the Illinois country and his time as a prisoner of war.

Jacob and Hannah Schieffelin returned to Detroit via Montreal and reached the western outpost on April 24, 1781.[33] Once in Detroit, Schieffelin returned to his position as government secretary and continued to purchase land.[34] Although the British forbade land purchases from Indians, numerous tracts were purchased by British officers and supporters once it became clear that Britain would not prevail in the revolutionary conflict. Of Schieffelin’s purchases, most notable was a grant obtained from the Ottawa Nation in October 1783 for “a tract of land seven miles square, fronting on the south side of the Detroit River, near its mouth and directly opposite Isle au Bois Blanc.”[35] Schieffelin may have anticipated the British government’s strategic interest in establishing a settlement opposite Detroit, which would soon become an American settlement, on the Canadian side of the Detroit River. Although the deed was subsequently cancelled and the land conveyed to the British in 1790, the purchase demonstrated Schieffelin’s foresight as a land speculator, a skill he would put to good use two decades later in Manhattan.[36]

Montreal

At the conclusion of the American Revolution, provincial military officers serving in the British Army in Detroit were dismissed from service effective June 24, 1784.[37] Jacob and Hannah moved to Montreal where Schieffelin pursued a career as a merchant, auctioneer, and importer. His appointment as “a Public Vendue master for the City and District of Montreal” authorized him to buy “and sell all and whatsoever Lands, Tenements, goods and effects, which may at any time be required.”[38] During this period, he accepted John Shuter as an apprentice “to be taught in the art and mystery of a Merchant or a Shopkeeper” for a six-year term commencing 1791, which suggested that his business was successful and that he expected to remain in Montreal for an extended period of time.[39]

In addition to commerce, Schieffelin expanded his real estate holdings in Canada. Records indicate that he filed for grants of lands in Canada in 1789, 1792, and even in 1803, long after he had moved to New York City.[40] Family papers document that he received 500 acres of land north of the Ottawa River.[41] Schieffelin also purchased land in the United States. A January 23, 1794, letter discussed real estate purchases in upstate New York, but provided no details about the transactions.[42]

In 1789-1790, Schieffelin spent an extended period of time in England lobbying on behalf of himself and the loyalist Canadian veterans who served under him during the war. On October 25, 1789, Schieffelin embarked on the ship Integrity bound for London where he sought to obtain compensation in the form of half-pay and recognition of rank for himself and his men. While in London, he maintained a chatty and lengthy journal chronicling his social activities, but included little information on his business activities, with the exception of mornings spent in the local coffee house where he caught up on news and presumably inquired of local business, as he would later do at the Tontine Coffee House in New York City. It is likely that he spent time with Effingham Lawrence, the brother of his father-in-law John Lawrence. Effingham Lawrence, the uncle of the Effingham Lawrence whose drug business Schieffelin would later take over in New York, had moved to London after his marriage and had become a druggist. This family relationship would provide a link between Quakers in England and the drug business in New York City and would allow access to the latest and best products available. Although Schieffelin’s trip to England was primarily related to his wartime service, the four to five months he spent in London provided him with an opportunity to meet with his father-in-law’s brother, acquaint himself with potential business partners, and establish relationships that would be important when he entered the drug business in New York City.[43]

By early February 1790, Schieffelin had wrapped up his business in London and was preparing to depart. Before he left, though, he placed orders for “sundry articles to get made by manufacturers” and prepared to ship the goods back to Montreal. A six page Inventory of Sundry groceries and Merchandize shipped by Jacob Schieffelin detailed the many items that he purchased in London, which carried a total value of £796, 15s, 5d (approximately £74,300 in 2011£ or $118,000 in 2011$).[44]

Despite living in Montreal, Jacob and Hannah’s relationship with Hannah’s extended family was strong, as letters between Schieffelin and John B. Lawrence, Hannah’s brother in the early 1790s demonstrate. The relationship exemplified the transnational social networks maintained by family and friends in the United States and British Canada which “kept departed [Loyalists] updated on the situation in town[s], sometimes aiding them in buying back attainted lands or counseling them on their next move.”[45] Lawrence wrote to Schieffelin on September 27, 1793 that he regretted “much you not coming to N. York with us as Effm. is anxious to come to some agreement respecting the store.” There is nothing in the papers to indicate why Effingham Lawrence was so anxious to sell the firm although his death in 1800 at the early age of forty suggests he may have been in poor health. Perhaps in order to hasten Schieffelin’s decision, Lawrence added that a person in the city has applied for part of the store. “I shall desire Effm to let you know his terms immediately on his return from Country.”[46] By early 1794, Schieffelin and his family had returned to New York City where he and his brother-in-law John took over Effingham Lawrence’s drug business, originally established in 1781 at 227 Queen Street (also known as Pearl Street) in Manhattan.[47]

New York – Druggist

When Schieffelin and John Lawrence entered into the drug business, the trade was primarily conducted by wholesale houses in New York and Philadelphia.[48] Before the Revolutionary War, drugs and botanicals had been mostly supplied by the English. By the time of the Revolution, about half of the drug manufacturing in England was controlled by the Quakers.[49] Quaker pharmacists in America had ready access to the latest and most up-to-date information thanks to their coreligionists in England. At the end of the eighteenth century, druggists provided a wide array of medicines, botanical products, cooking spices, surgical supplies, medicine chests, as well items found today in hardware stores — paints and glassware, for example — to general stores, physicians, farmers, plantations, ships, and apothecary shops. [50] Soon after the beginning of the eighteenth century, many druggists and apothecaries had expanded into chemical manufacturing, an activity that accelerated during the Revolutionary War, when, cut off from England, druggists learned new manufacturing techniques to produce the embargoed chemicals.

While Lawrence and Schieffelin’s firm had a London agent to source materials for their firm, they did not operate any retail branches besides their Manhattan store and depended on intensive advertising to promote the business.[51] One of the first advertisements, typical of many issued by the firm over the next eighteen years, announced that the new store at No. 195 Pearl Street had “just received by the late arrivals from Europe, an extensive and general assortment of Drugs & Medicines, which will be sold on the lowest terms for cash, or on a short credit, by Lawrence and Schieffelin: Under which Firm, the business of the said store will, in future, be carried on with punctuality and dispatch.” [52] The notice added that the firm has “Medicine Chests of all sizes for ship use, or that of private families, with proper directions.”[53] Within a month the firm’s advertisements included notices that they were accepting apprentices, suggesting that the business was growing. A September 1795 advertisement announced the replenishment of stock brought by the Ohio from London and the Union from Amsterdam; and added that the firm would prepare physician and family prescriptions, in addition to stocking medicine chests, shop furniture, vials, surgeons’ instruments, and other items.[54]

In 1794, the same year that Schieffelin joined the New York City business community, the Tontine Coffee House opened on the corner of Wall and Water Streets in Manhattan. It was the first iteration of the New York Stock Exchange and was used by a group of local traders who had set down the rules for stock trading in the 1792 Buttonwood Agreement. Schieffelin’s brother-in-law, Effingham, was one of those who formed the association that was responsible for upkeep of the building on whose second floor businessmen bought, sold, and traded stock and merchandise.[55] Ships’ captains also visited the coffee house to register their cargo, that is, provide details of the specific goods, volume, and value of cargo so appropriate taxes could be assessed. It eventually became one of the city’s busiest centers for buying and selling stock and other goods, as well as for conducting business deals and discussions. Schieffelin visited the Tontine Coffee House to purchase and trade cargo from ships that supplied his drug store, and also, in 1804, to purchase property in Ohio which was auctioned there.

Schieffelin’s success convinced him to expand his business beyond medicinal drugs. Since New York City’s harbor could accommodate deep-draft oceangoing vessels, by the end of the eighteenth century it had surpassed Philadelphia in the value of imported goods and therefore offered merchants increasing opportunities for trade. Schieffelin took advantage of this potential and added shipping and additional foreign trade to his business. He had several warehouses in New York City, where he stored imported goods such as double-refined saltpeter, coffee, Muscavo sugar, and gun powder. Schieffelin’s growing interest in shipping and importing concerned his partner John Lawrence enough that he withdrew from the partnership in 1799. Lawrence soon thereafter established a new store at 199 Pearl Street.[56] There is little reason to believe the reorganization was less than amicable since the brothers-in-law soon began investing jointly in property on the northwestern end of Manhattan Island, which eventually became known as Manhattanville. Schieffelin’s early efforts in shipping were successful, one 1795 voyage yielded a return of $25,000 (approximately $462,000 in 2011$), and he began to invest these profits in real estate, his second major business activity.[57]

Many of Schieffelin’s business activities were conducted within a broader family network that encompassed both the Lawrence clan and later his and Hannah’s offspring. The strong family connections that Jacob and Hannah had maintained with her relatives while the couple was living in Montreal continued after their return to New York City. His partnership with John Lawrence proved successful. Another brother-in-law, Richard L. Lawrence, operated a business a couple of doors down on Pearl Street that imported and sold leads, steel, pots, kettles, and other hardware.[58] The success of these businesses encouraged others in the family to open their own firms and in May 1801 two of Schieffelin’s sons, Edward L. and Henry Hamilton, purchased the stock of the late Dr. Nicholas S. Bayard and entered into co-partnership at 193 Pearl Street, next door to their father. [59] Barely a month later, this firm advertised for an apprentice, a sign that business was strong despite the nearby competition.[60] In July 1802, Schieffelin expanded his business and was appointed the wholesale and retail agent for P. Paterson, M.D, of London, and began selling Paterson’s “restorative vegetable drops” as well as his “nervous cordial pills.”[61] In 1803 his son, Edward L., now operating independently out of a storefront at 218 Water Street, expanded his products to include Glauber’s salts — a hydrate of sodium sulfate used widely at the time for its medicinal properties — as well as an antidote to the “dangerous effects of impure wines, otherwise undescribed.”[62] Both of these products speak to a couple of the major health concerns of the era: recurring epidemics of yellow fever and cholera and impure or poorly preserved food. In June 1804, Edward announced a partnership with Jonathan Schieffelin, Jacob’s (3) brother. The new firm, J & E Schieffelin & Co., operated out of 179 Pearl Street, where they had taken over the store of James Thomson.[63] This firm was dissolved in 1807 and its business subsequently conducted by a partnership of Jacob’s two brothers, Jonathan and Thomas, operating as J. & T. Schieffelin.[64] In 1805, Jacob and his son Henry joined together under the name Jacob Schieffelin & Son, and announced that the goods in their several warehouses would be of interest to dealers of drugs and medicines “on the continent of America, and the West-Indies.”[65] Jacob and Henry’s partnership was dissolved in 1814, “by mutual consent,” and the business conducted by the new partnership of Henry H. and his brothers Effingham and Jacob, under the name of Henry H. Schieffelin & Co, a name which would continue until 1849, when Henry retired, handing the firm over to four of his sons, Samuel Bradhurst, Sidney Augustus, Bradhurst, and James Lawrence, under the name of Schieffelin Brothers & Co. [66] These changes show that family members moved easily into and out of partnerships with each other, since many of them were in the same business, with a stock of similar products, and all located in close proximity to the busy docks along the East River waterfront.

Despite competing against each other at times, Jacob Schieffelin, his sons, his wife’s siblings, and their respective spouses maintained good relationships that continued for decades. The Manhattan New York City Directory of 1828-1829 lists John B. Lawrence, druggist, operating at 195 Pearl St. and offers nine separate listings for Schieffelin firms: Bradhurst [in-law of Henry Hamilton Schieffelin] & Schieffelin, druggists; four sons of Jacob — Effingham Schieffelin, marine justice; Henry H. Schieffelin, attorney; Richard L. Schieffelin, attorney, solicitor, and counselor; Henry H. Schieffelin & Co., druggists; — and four others, presumably sons of Jacob’s brother Thomas who died in 1828 — H.L.W. Schieffelin, owner of a china store; H.M. Schieffelin, merchant; Theodore Schieffelin, sail maker; Thomas, merchant.[67]

The various businesses operated by the Schieffelins and Lawrences, beginning with Schieffelin’s first partnership with his brother-in-law, John, offer testimony to the two families’ central place in the fabric of New York City’s business community in the early years of the Republic. While Schieffelin’s business relationships with his in-laws and his sons were numerous and, for the most part, successful, the only business relationship on record with his brothers and their sons was limited to the short-lived partnership of Jacob’s brother Jonathan and Jacob’s son Edward L. that dissolved after three years in 1807, in apparently ruinous financial condition.[68]

The nearly continuous war between Great Britain and France, which began in the early 1790s and continued for the next two decades, and both nations’ seizures of neutral American ships and cargo caused enormous trade disruption for merchants and shippers during the era.[69] British and French confiscations of vessels containing cargo belonging to Schieffelin brought him considerable losses. President Thomas Jefferson’s Embargo Act of 1807, which banned American ships from sailing to foreign ports, was intended to serve as a warning to both Great Britain and France by preventing them from obtaining American merchandise on American ships. Instead it caused far more harm to the U.S. economy whose businessmen could ill afford the loss of trade with Europe. John Lambert, travelling back to New York in early 1808, offered a bleak view when he reported that

…there were 500 vessels in the harbor, which were lying useless, and rotting for want of employment. Thousands of sailors were either destitute of bread, wandering about the country, or had entered into British service… and the farmers refrained from cultivating their land; for if they brought their produce to market, they either could not sell at all, or were obliged to dispose of it for only a fourth of its value.[70]

Trade disruptions, due to the Embargo or the subsequent War of 1812, seriously affected all American merchants who dealt in goods imported from Europe. Schieffelin’s business during the war changed greatly. Where once many ships had arrived routinely from England, France, and Holland filled with goods for his and others’ stores, now there were none. Consequently, Schieffelin could only offer local, American-made products in his shop.

In addition to affecting his merchandise selection, the trade disruptions and losses affected Schieffelin’s bottom line. His operations had relied heavily on capital raised from investors and banks, capital that had always been repaid once goods were sold. Schieffelin began to carry heavy debts that could not be so readily repaid. These circumstances “compelled him to sell his horses and carriages, his country estate of Rooka Hall and reduce his expenses in every way.”[71]

Some of his shipping was insured, some not. Although Schieffelin’s records detail what he insured, for how much, and what he paid, they shed no light on why he did not insure all shipments. He filed claims with Great Britain and France for ship losses on uninsured cargo and went to great lengths to pursue the claims. One of the losses he suffered, cargo of the ship Brunswick seized in Antigua in July 1807, was initially considered to be an insured loss. In 1811, the Lords of Appeal in London reversed course, however, and declared it uninsured, opening the way for London to pay.[72] Nonetheless, correspondence and documents in the files carry on through 1823, when it was argued that the case fell under the spirit of the Tenth Article of the Treaty of 1794, “it being a case of the debt due not from an individual British subject to these American citizens, but from the Government itself.”[73] The claim was never resolved but the fifteen-year history of the claim is testimony to the tenacity with which Schieffelin pursued the loss.

As the War of 1812 was winding down, Schieffelin retired from the pharmacy and shipping businesses, ostensibly to better manage property he had purchased in Pennsylvania (1796) and in Ohio (1804), leaving the firm in the hands of his son, Henry Hamilton Schieffelin. The inventory of Schieffelin’s estate, prepared on his death, shows no outstanding debts owed, indicating that his debts to investors and banks had been paid. While family records suggest that Schieffelin retired to manage his out-of-state property, documents also show that he continued to purchase property in Manhattan.

New York – Real Estate

As early as 1778, Schieffelin began purchasing real estate and he continued this practice soon after establishing his business in New York City in the 1790s.[74] Some of his purchases were clearly for speculative investment purposes, others for personal use, and some blurred the lines between the two. Land outside New York seems to have been purchased primarily as an investment venture — notwithstanding the fact that over thirty years later, his son Jacob Jr. would move permanently to land presumably owned by his father in Pennsylvania — and there are records of numerous purchases of this nature. On November 19, 1796, he and five others, mostly relatives, completed two major purchases of land in Lycoming, Pennsylvania.[75] One of the purchases consisted of 112 tracts of land, 110,859 acres in total, from William Parker, for $27,714.75 (approximately $487,000 in 2011$). The second purchase, from George Eddy and his wife, consisted of 114,545 acres for $22,909 (approximately $402,000 in 2011$). In each purchase, two of the investors, Edmund Prior and Effingham Lawrence, acquired one quarter of the property each and the other four investors received one eighth of the property each. [76] In one day, the six men purchased close to 225,000 acres in north-central Pennsylvania. The following year, Schieffelin purchased lots in Columbia County and Saratoga County, south and north, respectively, of Albany, New York.[77]

A September 19, 1804, copy of the American Citizen, a daily New York newspaper, hand-annotated by Jacob Schieffelin offers a glimpse at how Schieffelin, and presumably many others, conducted land transactions during this era. The fourth page of the newspaper noted that Ohio property would be sold at the Tontine Coffee House on November 21, 1804, and provided location information, acreage, and descriptions (for instance, poor hill land or good rich upland) for each parcel. Shieffelin had marked some of the lots listed in the newspaper, on which he presumably had bid, and noted on the front page, “Marietta lands purchased by Jacob Schieffelin.” On the basis of similar public announcements and survey results, Schieffelin bid for and purchased numerous parcels of land throughout the Northeast. His inventory of assets, prepared in 1811, listed 1,173 acres in Ohio and 822 acres in Rochester, New York. A sale of land in Georgia to his son Richard, as well as a letter to his son Jacob regarding efforts to collect a debt in the South, show that he did not limit his investments to the Northeast.[78] Land speculation has been called perhaps the single most important process in understanding nation-making and in these purchases, Schieffelin was following the steps of earlier land speculators, who came where land was abundant and cheap, having left behind a world where land and its products, such as food and lumber, had become scarce. He was also following in the footsteps of contemporaries such as Washington, Franklin, Patrick Henry, and Daniel Webster who were all active land speculators in the Early Republic.[79]

While Schieffelin’s real estate dealings in undeveloped, rural land can be considered speculative purchases, those within the extended geographical sphere of New York City can be seen as investments in property directly relevant to the business life of the city. Schieffelin purchased some property for his own business activities and acquired other land with the intent to lease it for business or residential purposes, thereby developing a steady income on property he could later sell for profit. He commenced real estate purchases in the vicinity of Manhattan within six months of his arrival in 1794. His first purchase consisted of property in Brooklyn.[80] Since his business operated out of Manhattan, this was either intended as an investment property or purchased in anticipation of constructing a warehouse on the property in the near future.

Schieffelin used a portion of the $25,000 profit he made on one shipping venture in 1795 to purchase farmland on the Hudson River, property intended for his personal use.[81] Five years later, he sold approximately half of the property, a piece of land equidistant from the East River and the Hudson, to Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton built his estate home — the “Grange” — on the land. Schieffelin’s friendship with Hamilton, rather than a profit motive, appears to be the reason why he sold such a large piece of the land to the founding father. On the remaining parcel, fronting on the Hudson, Schieffelin built Rooka Hall, described in handwritten notes in the family papers as “containing twenty-five acres of beautiful meadow-arable and woodland, fronting on the Bloomingdale Road on the East, Myers Woods on the South, and Samuel Bradhurst’s farm of 100 acres on the North, with Hamilton’s country seat on the other side of the road.”[82]

On June 6, 1798, he purchased “all those lots or parcels of land, situated, lying and being in the seventh ward, of the city of New York, between the mansion house, late of James Delancey, Esquire, and the house commonly called the haunted house, known by lots number two hundred and seventeen, two hundred and eighteen, two hundred and nineteen, and also one half of lot number two hundred and sixteen.”[83] Six months later, he purchased 34 acres “in Haerlem (the 7th ward) for $10,750 [approximately $203,000 in 2011$].”[84] Just as the family businesses of the Schieffelins and Lawrences intertwined, so too did their real estate transactions. Schieffelin purchased and sold property to family members. For example, in March 1800, his brother-in-law John purchased lots of land in the Seventh Ward from Schieffelin and in the following September, several tracts of land in Lycoming, Pennsylvania.

Schieffelin’s various purchases and sales of property in Upper Manhattan suggest an overarching plan for many of these investments, a plan that would produce one of the earliest planned communities in the still-nascent republic. Schieffelin saw the potential of this under-developed part of northern Manhattan Island, with an excellent, though small, harbor on the Hudson River, and he purchased residential and business properties, built homes, introduced both industry and educational institutions, and eventually a local church to the community. In 1806 Schieffelin and his brothers-in-law, Thomas Buckley and John B. Lawrence, joined the lands they owned individually and jointly in northern Manhattan and requested that surveyor Adolphus Loss lay out the plan for Manhattanville, which was incorporated as a village the same year. Manhattanville was organized around a street grid that followed the natural topography of the area, on land that had long been cattle pastures and farms. Harlem Cove formed the heart of the commercial waterfront. Stables, warehouses, icehouses, and factories blossomed along Manhattan Street, which in turn became a major transportation route moving goods from what was then Kingsbridge Road to the Hudson River.[85] The Public Advertiser in 1807 described Manhattanville as

a flourishing little town, pleasantly situated near the banks of the Hudson, about eight miles from City-Hall… first projected and laid out twelve months ago by Mr. Schieffelin and others, since which an Academy has been erected, where are taught by persons of superior qualifications, the Latin, French and English Languages… A very excellent public house has been built and opened, together with many private houses and a ferry established to the opposite shore of the North [Hudson] river… and a market is contemplated to be finished in the course of the present summer. [86]

When established, the streets carried the names of Schieffelin, Effingham, Buckley, Lawrence, Hamilton, and Manhattan. Extant maps show not only the street plans and parcels owned by the individual developers, but also Harlem Cove, with its high and low water marks, situated at the west end of what is now 125^th Street.[87]

Schieffelin did not confine his investments in Manhattan to the northern end of the island. He invested in property in Lower Manhattan with the intention of leasing it. As early as 1799, his firm posted notices of property available to rent, for business or residential use, in Lower Manhattan and Manhattanville.[88] Many notices listed multiple properties, such as a March 1809 announcement offering a dozen houses, one with a store, mostly in Lower Manhattan but another on Bloomingdale Road (later renamed Broadway) in the northern part of the island with “a few acres suitable for a gardener,” as well as several well-built two-story houses in Manhattanville.[89] His inventory of 1811 lists fourteen houses and lots in Manhattanville with a value of $28,633 (approximately $506,000 in 2011$); seven houses and lots in Lower Manhattan valued at $58,850 (approximately $1,040,000 in 2011$) and Rooka Hall valued at $16,000 (approximately $283,000 in 2011$). The majority of these properties (excepting his store on Pearl Street, his country estate, and the property in which he lived) were rental units.

Curiously, starting in 1808 Schieffelin’s firm posted rental notices for the Manhattanville Academy, “where a person qualified to take charge of a large respectable School, would meet with liberal encouragement.”[90] Later, the notices offered “to let or lease the buildings known as Manhattanville Academy and Boarding House, with a good garden and as much land as may be wanted for pasture and cultivation… also the Three-Story House on the westerly side of Walnut-street… has a number of rooms, and fitted up for boarders and a grocery store.”[91] These notices suggest that Schieffelin and his partners’ hopes for the thriving community, at least as far as the Academy was concerned, were fading. In 1810, perhaps in response to the losses he incurred due to British and French attacks on his shipping, Schieffelin placed Rooka Hall for sale in a notice, referring to it as “that elegant and beautiful Farm, of 24 acres, on the Hudson River and Bloomindale Road.… The buildings are insured for $7600 [approximately $143,000 in 2011$] – There are above 1000 choice grafted Fruit Trees… the fences have cost $1000 [approximately $18,900 in 2011$].”[92]

The Inventory of Real and Personal Estate of Jacob Schieffelin, dated January 2, 1811, outlines his investments as of 1810.[93] Presumably the trade losses he had suffered and his outstanding debt compelled the preparation of this inventory, one that includes houses, land, stock, shipments, and claims on the governments of England, France, and Holland. His summary shows real estate investments worth $137,305.33 (approximately $2, 430,000 in 2011$), less bonds and mortgages of $54,041.59 (approximately $955,000 in 2011$), and lost shipments and claims of $93,249.35 (approximately $1,650,000 in 2011$).[94] The details of the shipping losses offer clear testimony to his financial problems.[95] Subsequently, as he sold property, he annotated the Inventory so his estate could more easily be brought up to date. The change in his real estate holdings when he died offers stark witness to the effect of the shipping losses. The Estimate of Estate of J. Schieffelin prepared after his death in 1835 valued his real estate holdings (including New York City, Ohio and Pennsylvania) at $55,700 (approximately $1,470,000 in 2011$) and French claims of $7000 (approximately $184,000 in 2011$).[96] A Schedule of Lands Belonging to Jacob Schieffelin, published in August 1835 after his death, inventoried over fifty lots of over 10,000 acres in four Ohio counties. Some of these were purchased in 1804, but another half dozen purchases from 1815 to 1830, both in Ohio and Manhattan, attest that he continued to expand and manage his speculative land investments actively following his retirement from the drug business.

At the time of his death, however, there is no mention of property in upstate New York or Canada, and there were no outstanding claims against him and only one for him, against France, which was paid to his estate after his death. A decade after his death, three of Jacob’s sons (Henry H., Effingham, and Richard L.) are listed among the wealthy citizens of New York City, worth $200,000, $300,000, and $350,000, respectively (approximately $6,140,000, $9,210,000, and $10,700,000 in 2011$). The entries indicate that the bulk of their wealth derived from their father’s estate, presumably from property sold after his death.[97]

Social Status

Jacob Schieffelin, son of a German immigrant father, swore allegiance to the British crown and served as a member of the Canadian militia during the Revolution. He married into a long-standing American family, however, and, along with his family, became firmly entrenched in the business community of New York City. He joined the German Society in 1794 and, within a year of its founding in 1802, served as a director of the Washington Mutual Assurance Society.[98] Both of these associations provided him companionship and access to fellow businessmen in addition to the relationships he developed in the course of his business activities. The location of his businesses, as well as his early residences in Lower Manhattan, was in an area occupied by the great import and export houses of the era. These were situated strategically close to the East River docks, which served as a point of entry and departure for all manner of domestic and foreign commerce. As John Lampert saw in the first decade of the nineteenth century, just before the Embargo of 1807:

The Tontine Coffee-House was filled with underwriters, brokers, merchants, traders and politicians; selling, purchasing, trafficking, or insuring; some reading, others eagerly inquiring the news.… The coffee-house slip, and the corners of Wall and Pearl-streets were jammed up with carts, drays, and wheel-barrows; horses and men were huddled promiscuously together, leaving little or no room for passengers to pass.… Everything was in motion; all was life, bustle, and activity. The people were scampering in all directions to trade with each other, and to ship their purchases for European, Asian, African and West Indian Markets. Every word, thought, look and action of the multitude seemed to be absorbed by commerce.[99]

Schieffelin married into a prominent Quaker family, albeit without parental or religious permission. Even though his wife never sought reinstatement in the Quaker Meeting House and worshipped together with her husband and children in the Episcopal churches in the city, the two families became and remained close. Her family, his in-laws, played critical roles in his business interests as a merchant and a real-estate investor.

Although Quakers were fierce abolitionists, as was Schieffelin’s friend Alexander Hamilton, there is clear evidence of Schieffelin’s ownership of slaves through 1810 and beyond.[100] Schieffelin certified on September 3, 1800 that “a certain Negro child named George was born on the 29^th day of June 1800 of my Negro woman slave named Betty, which child I abandon according to Law.”[101] This legal statement was part of the process of gradual abolition, freeing the owner from support of young slaves who were expected to be freed in the near future. The 1800 federal census shows five slaves in the Schieffelin household. The 1810 census lists one household slave and the 1820 census lists none.

Schieffelin’s investments in real estate in northern Manhattan reflected an effort on his part to create a vibrant community on a part of Manhattan Island that many thought would not be developed for centuries. In Manhattanville, he not only purchased land as an investment but also developed properties on the land, in effect creating one of the earliest planned residential and industrial developments in the Early Republic. Situated at approximately the same latitude, Harlem and Manhattanville flourished together throughout the nineteenth century as the two most prominent villages in Upper Manhattan. [102]

Shortly after Manhattanville was formed, St. Michael’s Episcopal Church on Ninety-Ninth Street was consecrated. Schieffelin served as a vestryman for this church. At the time, this was the only Episcopal church between St. Mark’s-in-the-Bouwerie and St. John’s in Yonkers. In 1820 the Reverend William Richmond began holding services in Thomas Finley’s schoolhouse, a building which had offered a meeting place for various religious groups. Ultimately, Schiefffelin donated a plot of land on which St. Mary’s Episcopal Church stands. The church was constructed between1824 and 1826 and, when the first frame church burned at the turn of the twentieth century, was replaced by the neo-Gothic structure that stands today.[103] The church established the first free school of New York, opening in 1824 to children of all denominations. Schieffelin and Valentine Nutter served as wardens initially, and Schieffelin’s son Richard L. was one of the first vestrymen.[104] Congregants of the church included veteran Patriots and Loyalists, Alexander Hamilton’s widow, African-American abolitionists, and Mayor Daniel F. Tiemann who owned the D. F. Tiemann & Co. Color Works which relocated uptown in 1832.[105]

Schieffelin’s business network developed in large part from his neighboring business associates and his in-laws, Hannah’s brothers, and the husbands of her sisters and cousins. Although his brothers Jonathan and Thomas resided in the city from at least 1804, and his mother, who had remarried an R.M. Gordon, died in New York City in 1816, there is little indication of business relationships between Jacob and his brothers.[106] Jonathan’s involvement with a major plan to purchase the Lower Michigan Peninsula through bribes to the U.S Senate, Thomas’s involvement with a major failed water scheme in Montreal, and Thomas’s insolvency in New York City may reflect serious shortcomings in their business acumen that Jacob recognized and sought to avoid.[107] In any event, despite close blood ties, there appears no evidence of a strong role of these relatives in his business life. Social relationships with Jacob’s mother or brothers do not appear in the family papers or other records, but it is possible that they maintained an active social life.

Conclusion

Although Jacob Schieffelin was born in Philadelphia to a German immigrant, his formative years in Montreal and service in the Canadian militia alongside the British Army made him comfortable operating in a transnational business and social environment. The fact that he was a Loyalist appears to have been founded more on his father’s immigration to the British colony of Pennsylvania and subsequent removal to Montreal, where he was enrolled in military service at age eighteen, rather than from a specific decision to oppose the American revolutionaries.[108] Although he joined the German Society shortly after arriving in New York City and surely benefitted from the connections it fostered with others of German ancestry, he did not demonstrate much interest in his German forebears.[109] His business interests were with European countries, chiefly England, but also France, the Netherlands, and the German states. He and his brothers serve as examples of German immigrant children who integrated successfully into the fabric of American life. Schieffelin’s experience also reflects the broader story of New York City during and after the American Revolution. It illustrates the rebuilding of the city after the war through mercantile and shipping business by former Patriots and Loyalists through import and export trade activities. The fate of his shipping business is but one example of the commercial problems that merchants had to deal with as the U.S. became ensnared in the conflict between Britain and France. His real estate dealings and community development efforts offer testament to the rapid physical expansion of New York City, and westward expansion of the nation, after the Revolutionary War.

Schieffelin was forced to liquidate many of his landholdings before his 1835 death in order to pay off the debts that he incurred as a result of ships and cargos lost to seizures at sea. However, the New York City medicinal drug business that he began in 1794 carried the Schieffelin name into the present era.[110] It is a testimony to his foresight and sound business practices that the business maintained a successful course for nearly 220 years. His descendants continued to serve New York City as lawyers and public servants, or by continuing the family entrepreneurial ways. His son Henry, following his father’s strong interest in increasing the purity of drugs and raising ethical standards, gave a great deal of time as secretary of the New York Druggists Association and played a leading role in the creation of the College of Pharmacy. [111] Jacob Jr., after an active business career in which he traveled extensively in South America, Mexico, and the West Indies, retired and moved to Tioga, Pennsylvania, presumably on some of the land purchased by his father in 1796. [112] Here he patented a machine for cutting straw in 1860.[113] In 1860, Schieffelin & Brothers, Co., then a partnership of Jacob’s four grandsons, persuaded Weston Howland, secretary of the New Bedford Coal Oil Company, to attempt refining oil from Schieffelin wells, and Howland’s success opened new business for the firm.[114] While the story of Jacob and Hannah highlights the permeability of the wartime boundaries and loyalties in greater New York City, and the country as a whole, and illustrates one way that Loyalists were reintegrated into the fabric of the new country, the story of Jacob, his forbearers, and his descendants also provides an example of the strong role that immigrants played in the early economic and social development of the United States. [115]

Notes