Daniel McCormick (banker)

Alexander Macomb (1748–1831) was a Belfast-born merchant who had made money during the war as a fur trader in Michigan and then moved to New York to become a land speculator and shipping magnate. In 1788, he built a large mansion at 39 Broadway, which in 1790 was leased to become George Washington's presidential residence.

In 1791, Macomb bought a tract of 3.6 million acres (15,000 km²) in upper New York state that became known as "Macomb's Purchase". He bought it for eight cents an acre with no down payment, and agreed to pay off the amount in six annual installments. Macomb was actually just the front man for the purchase, which was made by a group that included Daniel McCormick and William Constable, another merchant who had also made his money in the fur trade and was one of the first Americans to trade with China. The purchase covered about one-tenth of New York state, and included all of present-day Lewis County and large parts of Oswego County, St. Lawrence County, Franklin County, and Jefferson County. It contained only a few squatters, and consisted of good farmland.

The land was put up for sale, with Constable even going to Europe to try to make sales there. During the gubernatorial election of 1792 there were charges that Governor George Clinton stood to benefit from the transaction because of his friendship with McCormick, who allegedly held a third of the tract and planned to transfer part of it to Clinton; McCormick denied this. Besides, he was a federalist when Clinton was an anti-federalist. Sales did not keep up with the due dates for payments on the loan, and during the Panic of 1792 Macomb was sent to debtors' prison with debts of more than $300,000, a fortune at the time. The land was divided among McCormick, Constable, and the creditors, and was sold and re-sold during the 1790s. Clinton sued his accusers for libel, and won the case.

An Irish Presbyterian, McCormick served as a trustee of Brick Presbyterian Church.^[3]

In 1784, he became founder and first president of an Irish-American charitable and social organization, the Society of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick in the City of New York.^[8]

McCormick was appointed a trustee of the New York Society Library in 1801.

The character of McCormick's later years was described by Walter Barrett as follows:

Mr. McCormick was a glorious sample of the old New Yorker. He stuck to Wall Street to the last. Death alone could get him out of it. He died in 1834, and from 1792 until that date he never budged an inch out of the honored old street. He witnessed the removal of his neighbors one by one, year after year, until all had gone. He saw offices and business crowding into the cellar and floors and garrets of the vacated buildings; he saw new buildings put up for offices; but he was firm, and finally was left alone, the only gentleman who continued to reside in his own house, in the good old fashioned style. He never changed his habits. He stuck to short breeches and white stockings and buckles to the last. He wore hair-powder as long as he lived, and believed in curls. He was without a stain upon his character. He was fond of his friends, and they loved him, although he saw nearly all of them enter the grave. He gave good dinner parties, and had choice old wines upon the table. In his invitations for dinner he invited three, or five, or seven persons to dine with him, but never an even number; and he was always anxious to have those come that he invited, so that ill-luck might not chance by one not coming, thus giving the unlucky even number of persons to entertain. After dinner came a good old game of whist for one or two tables, according as he invited more or less. He was fond of the game, and his friends also were good whist player[s]. He owned a large landed property, and when he died was very rich. On those days, and for years, the great topic of conversation was Bonaparte.^[9]

McCormick died in 1834, and his house was torn down not long afterwards, and in 1836-42 the Merchant's Exchange was built on its site at 55-57 Wall Street. The building was later home to the New York Stock Exchange and to the United States Custom House.