Greater Astoria Historical Society
Queensboro Bridge entrance
at Queens Plaza (1909)
www.qns.com I LIC COURIER I OCTOBER 2019 27
Legends
CITIZEN OF THE WORLD
An essayist once said that Pennsylva-nia
produced two great leaders: Benjamin
Franklin and Albert Gallatin. Both held
prominent roles in the early years of our
republic. They were successful entrepre-neurs
with interests in science, literature
and education and were respected by
those who knew them. Both would fit
seamlessly within our modern times.
Franklin’s adopted hometown, Phila-delphia,
honors him. Gallatin’s adopted
hometown, Astoria, knows nothing of him.
Gallatin, a student of the Enlighten-ment,
believed when human nature was
free from social restrictions, it would
display noble qualities. The democratic
spirit of the new American Republic in
the late 1780s attracted him and he
decided to emigrate from his birthplace,
Geneva, Switzerland to New England.
He soon moved to the American frontier, at
that time Western Pennsylvania, and with an
inheritance established a community, Friend-ship
Hill. He rapidly rose to local prominence
and was elected to the committee in Philadel-phia,
at that time the seat of government, to
help draft the Bill of Rights. In 1799, Gallatin
was elected to the House of Representatives.
He became the de facto leader of the House
Democrats a year later. It was a position that
enabled him to aid his political ally, Thomas
Jefferson, in winning the presidency.
Gallatin was soon rewarded with an
appointment to the Secretary of the
Treasury, an office he held for 15 years
– the longest tenure of anyone with that
responsibility. His performance was out-standing.
He paid off a good portion of the
Revolutionary War debt, provided funding
for the Louisiana Purchase, supported
the National Bank (which gave stability
to the infant republic’s banking system),
and funded a network of turnpikes that
knit the young republic together.
His next role, as ambassador to France
and then England was equally stellar. He
helped negotiate the Treaty of Ghent
ending the War of 1812 and established
an Anglo-American partnership over the
administration of Oregon Territory.
Gallatin was a believer that one’s future
should be determined by merit rather than
birthright or social class. After retiring from
public life in 1830, he sponsored a three
day conference in New York City attended
by a group of prominent merchants, bank-ers,
and traders. The object was to design
an institution of higher learning for those
“who would be admitted based upon
merit rather than birthright or social class.”
New York University was the product of
this discussion. He was elected its first
president. His final accomplishment was
to found the American Ethnological Soci-ety
in 1842, the oldest organization in the
United States to support anthropological
research on human cultures.
On August 12, 1849, Gallatin died in
his daughter’s arms at home in the Village
of Astoria, near Halletts Cove. He was 88.
There are seven towns, seven roads, six
schools, five counties, a national forest, a
river, a mountain range and an airport named
in his honor. His face appeared on currency
and postage stamps. Gallatin Bank was one
of the parent institutions of today’s Chase JP
Morgan Bank. His memory remains strong
within the Department of the Treasury. A
number of revenue cutters (small lightly
armed boats used to enforce regulations
and catch smugglers) bore his name. His
statue is in front of the Treasury building.
The Albert Gallatin Award is the Treasury’s
highest honorary career service award.
Despite this record of lifetime ac-complishment,
Gallatin, a member of
the Democratic Party and native French
speaker, was attacked by opponents (then
the Federalist Party – today known as the
Republican Party) for his foreign accent.
A biographical sketch by grandson, John
Austin Stevens, paints a fitting tribute to this
remarkable man: “His moral excellence was
no less conspicuous than his intellectual
power. He had a profound sense of justice,
a love of liberty and an unfaltering belief in
the capacity of the human race for self-rule.
Versed in the learning of centuries, and
familiar with every experiment of govern-ment,
he was full of the liberal spirit of his
age. To a higher degree than any American,
native or foreign born, unless Franklin, with
whose broad nature he had many traits
in common, Albert Gallatin deserves the
proud title, aimed at by many, reached by
few – Citizen of the World.”
Greater Astoria Historical Society
LIC Arts Building # Suite 219
44-02 23rd Street
Long Island City, NY 11101
718-278-0700 / info@astorialic.org
Serving the communities of
Old Long Island City:
Blissville
Sunnyside
Sunnyside Gardens
Hunters Point
Dutch Kills
Ravenswood
Astoria Broadway
Norwood
Old Astoria Village
Ditmars
Steinway
Bowery Bay
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