John George Alexander Leishman
Encyclopedia
John George Alexander Leishman (1857-1924) was an American
businessman and diplomat. He worked in various executive positions at Carnegie Steel Company
and later served as an ambassador for the United States.
on March 28, 1857, the only son of Scots-Irish immigrants John B. Leishman (1827-1857) and Amelia Henderson (1832-1905).
His father drowned in the Allegheny River
the same year in which he was born. Leishman began a lifetime of work at age ten, as an assistant for a Pittsburgh physician. Over the next seventeen years, Leishman would rise to become a trusted confidant of both Henry Clay Frick
and Andrew Carnegie
.
As senior partner in Leishman and Snyder, Leishman caught the attention of Andrew Carnegie
, who convinced Leishman to enter Carnegie's service on October 1, 1884, as Special Sales Agent. Carnegie saw more than a little of himself in the younger man; throughout his life, Carnegie continued to think of Leishman as one of his “boys” and included Leishman in the official “History of the Carnegie Veterans Association”. Leishman occupied the following positions: Vice Chairman, Carnegie Brothers & Company, Ltd.; Vice President and Treasurer, Carnegie Steel Company
and President, Carnegie Steel Company.
The Leishmans' social and business connections provided entrée into an extraordinarily exclusive circle of sixty-odd families, called the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club
. It was conceived as an idyllic summer colony, bought and developed by Henry Clay Frick
in Cambria County, Pennsylvania
, a short, convenient train ride away from the smoke and soot of Pittsburgh’s industry. To create the summer colony, an abandoned Pennsylvania Railroad earthen dam was rebuilt and increased in size to create a mountaintop reservoir for pleasure boating, which was named Lake Conemaugh. Among the Club’s members were Andrew Carnegie
, Henry Clay Frick
and Andrew Mellon. The Club’s earthen dam failed on May 31, 1889, contributing to the Johnstown Flood
disaster.
Many of the Pittsburgh members of the Club were hastily assembled in an ad hoc meeting and formed “The Pittsburgh Relief Committee.” Two decisions were made at that meeting. One was to make immediate, generous and tangible gifts to help the flood relief efforts. The other was a pledge never to speak of the Club or the Flood in public or in private. All litigation was handled by attorneys Philander Knox and his partner James Hay Reed, of the firm Knox and Reed (now Reed Smith LLP), both of whom were themselves South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club
members.
On July 23, 1892, Alexander Berkman
, a self-proclaimed anarchist, sought to destroy Henry Clay Frick, the man Berkman blamed for the carnage of the Homestead steel strike in the preceding weeks. Armed with a pistol and a sharpened rat-tailed file, Berkman gained easy access to the headquarters of Carnegie Steel and found his way into the second floor private office of the chairman, 43-year-old Henry Clay Frick
. Berkman forced his way into Frick's private office on the heels of a porter who had taken in his card. He opened fire, and Frick fell to the ground with three bullets in his body. Berkman was fended off by Leishman, Frick’s second in command, who was in Frick’s office at the time.
Amid the growing rancor between Frick and Carnegie, Leishman attempted to steer a middle course. This was thwarted when Frick engaged a stratagem to orchestrate the ouster of the man who has saved his life from the presidency of Carnegie Steel, and his removal from the Western Pennsylvanian business scene. Frick alerted Carnegie to Leishman's speculation in the stock market, a practice that Carnegie engaged in freely, but abhorred in his subordinates. Frick worked behind the scenes, with Philander Knox to see that Leishman would be offered the post as ambassador to Switzerland.
Under pressure from both men, Leishman withdrew from Carnegie service in June 1897, to accept the appointment by President William McKinley
as United States Ambassador to Switzerland. Thereafter, Leishman became United States Ambassador to Turkey
in 1900, United States Ambassador to Italy
in 1909 and United States Ambassador to Germany
in 1911.
Years later, as a board member of the Equitable Life Insurance Company, Frick used a similar scheme to wheedle the removal of James Hazen Hyde
(the founder's only son and heir) from the United States to France by seeking an appointment for him to become United States Ambassador to France. Unlike Leishman a decade before, Hyde, rebuffed Frick's plan. However, Hyde did go to live in France, where he met and eventually married Leishman's eldest daughter, Marthe.
While serving in Turkey, Leishman was instrumental in effecting the safe release of missionary Miss Ellen Stone as well as bringing about the purchase of the first overseas property to serve as a United States embassy, the Palazzo Corpi. He also distinguished himself for diplomatic tact and dexterity in his negotiations with Turkey for full rights for American citizens and schools in that country, and in his pressing with equal success his insistence that the American minister should have access to the Sultan. His office was elevated to the rank of Extraordinary Ambassador and Plenipotentiary in 1906. While serving in Italy, Leishman purchased the much beloved and often reproduced painting called the Madonna of the Streets. The painting's current whereabouts is not known.
Leishman's daughters made European marriages that were much talked of at the time. The American press considered these notably brilliant matches even among the many monied American young ladies (those "lovely trans-Atlantic invaders" as Edith Wharton
called them) who found suitable titled European husbands in the pre-World War I marriage market. However, some titled Europeans felt that the Leishman girls had wed above their social station.
Martha (who later styled herself Marthe) married first Count Louis de Gontaut-Biron, and secondly the heir to the AXA Equitable Life Insurance Company
(formerly The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States) fortune, James Hazen Hyde
who was the only son and heir of Henry Baldwin Hyde
. Their son was Henry Hyde of the Office of Strategic Services
(OSS) in World War II. In Switzerland in 1898 she was painted by the Swiss-born American portrait painter Adolfo Müller-Ury
(1862-1947). As the Countess de Gontaut-Biron, Marthe was a society hostess and couturier Coco Chanel
's first aristocratic client. Marthe was a favorite of George V
and a close personal friend of Mr. and Mrs. Cole Porter
and Francis Poulenc
.
Nancy married first Karl, 13th Prince von Croy, of the House of Croy
, amid extensive newspaper coverage in Europe and the United States of a notoriety not to be surpassed until the romance between Wallis Simpson and Edward VIII, because Kaiser Wilhelm II refused to give his official permission for their marriage; Nancy, being a commoner and an American, was not considered a good match for the prince who ranked among the highest nobility of titled Europeans. Karl's aunt, the formidable Princess Isabella of Croÿ
, wife of Archduke Friedrich, Duke of Teschen
, was chief among the European nobility who vehemently protested the match. They were wed, nonetheless; today their grandson is the present Duke of Croy. Nancy married secondly Andreas d'Oldenberg, Danish ambassador to France.
John Jr. was for a time married to New York socialite Elizabeth Helene Demarest, whose daughter by her subsequent marriage to Lord Alastair Sutherland-Leveson-Gower is Elizabeth Millicent Leveson-Gower, 24th Countess of Sutherland
.
While serving abroad, the Leishmans were often in Paris, at Deauville
, Monte Carlo
, or in the Swiss or Italian lakes, always a part of a gittering circle of celebrated American and European friends. Julia Leishman was instrumental in forming and serving as the first president of the Paris Skating Club; among her intimate friends who shared in this Paris innovation was the Baroness Henri de Rothschild
.
. They are buried in the Cemeterie de Monaco.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
businessman and diplomat. He worked in various executive positions at Carnegie Steel Company
Carnegie Steel Company
Carnegie Steel Company was a steel producing company created by Andrew Carnegie to manage business at his steel mills in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area in the late 19th century.-Creation:...
and later served as an ambassador for the United States.
Biography
John George Alexander Leishman was born in Pittsburgh, PennsylvaniaPennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
on March 28, 1857, the only son of Scots-Irish immigrants John B. Leishman (1827-1857) and Amelia Henderson (1832-1905).
His father drowned in the Allegheny River
Allegheny River
The Allegheny River is a principal tributary of the Ohio River; it is located in the Eastern United States. The Allegheny River joins with the Monongahela River to form the Ohio River at the "Point" of Point State Park in Downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania...
the same year in which he was born. Leishman began a lifetime of work at age ten, as an assistant for a Pittsburgh physician. Over the next seventeen years, Leishman would rise to become a trusted confidant of both Henry Clay Frick
Henry Clay Frick
Henry Clay Frick was an American industrialist, financier, and art patron. He founded the H. C. Frick & Company coke manufacturing company, was chairman of the Carnegie Steel Company, and played a major role in the formation of the giant U.S. Steel steel manufacturing concern...
and Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish-American industrialist, businessman, and entrepreneur who led the enormous expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century...
.
Career
Prior to his entry into the Carnegie service, John Leishman had been in the service of Shoenberger Steel Company, as what was termed a "mud clerk". Mud clerks were the steel industry’s representatives on the river wharf, responsible for tracking the shipping of goods: the arrival of raw materials and the departure of finished products. To guarantee efficiency and success, mud clerks lived 24 hours a day in small sheds on the riverbank. This work led first to an unsuccessful venture as an independent steel broker and then a successful partnership with his friend and colleague from Shoenberger Steel, William Penn Snyder.As senior partner in Leishman and Snyder, Leishman caught the attention of Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish-American industrialist, businessman, and entrepreneur who led the enormous expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century...
, who convinced Leishman to enter Carnegie's service on October 1, 1884, as Special Sales Agent. Carnegie saw more than a little of himself in the younger man; throughout his life, Carnegie continued to think of Leishman as one of his “boys” and included Leishman in the official “History of the Carnegie Veterans Association”. Leishman occupied the following positions: Vice Chairman, Carnegie Brothers & Company, Ltd.; Vice President and Treasurer, Carnegie Steel Company
Carnegie Steel Company
Carnegie Steel Company was a steel producing company created by Andrew Carnegie to manage business at his steel mills in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area in the late 19th century.-Creation:...
and President, Carnegie Steel Company.
The Leishmans' social and business connections provided entrée into an extraordinarily exclusive circle of sixty-odd families, called the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club
South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club
The South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club was a Pennsylvania corporation which operated an exclusive and secretive retreat at a mountain lake near South Fork, Pennsylvania for more than fifty extremely wealthy men and their families...
. It was conceived as an idyllic summer colony, bought and developed by Henry Clay Frick
Henry Clay Frick
Henry Clay Frick was an American industrialist, financier, and art patron. He founded the H. C. Frick & Company coke manufacturing company, was chairman of the Carnegie Steel Company, and played a major role in the formation of the giant U.S. Steel steel manufacturing concern...
in Cambria County, Pennsylvania
Cambria County, Pennsylvania
Cambria County is a county located in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. It comprises the Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of 2010, the population was 143,679....
, a short, convenient train ride away from the smoke and soot of Pittsburgh’s industry. To create the summer colony, an abandoned Pennsylvania Railroad earthen dam was rebuilt and increased in size to create a mountaintop reservoir for pleasure boating, which was named Lake Conemaugh. Among the Club’s members were Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish-American industrialist, businessman, and entrepreneur who led the enormous expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century...
, Henry Clay Frick
Henry Clay Frick
Henry Clay Frick was an American industrialist, financier, and art patron. He founded the H. C. Frick & Company coke manufacturing company, was chairman of the Carnegie Steel Company, and played a major role in the formation of the giant U.S. Steel steel manufacturing concern...
and Andrew Mellon. The Club’s earthen dam failed on May 31, 1889, contributing to the Johnstown Flood
Johnstown Flood
The Johnstown Flood occurred on May 31, 1889. It was the result of the catastrophic failure of the South Fork Dam situated upstream of the town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, USA, made worse by several days of extremely heavy rainfall...
disaster.
Many of the Pittsburgh members of the Club were hastily assembled in an ad hoc meeting and formed “The Pittsburgh Relief Committee.” Two decisions were made at that meeting. One was to make immediate, generous and tangible gifts to help the flood relief efforts. The other was a pledge never to speak of the Club or the Flood in public or in private. All litigation was handled by attorneys Philander Knox and his partner James Hay Reed, of the firm Knox and Reed (now Reed Smith LLP), both of whom were themselves South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club
South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club
The South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club was a Pennsylvania corporation which operated an exclusive and secretive retreat at a mountain lake near South Fork, Pennsylvania for more than fifty extremely wealthy men and their families...
members.
On July 23, 1892, Alexander Berkman
Alexander Berkman
Alexander Berkman was an anarchist known for his political activism and writing. He was a leading member of the anarchist movement in the early 20th century....
, a self-proclaimed anarchist, sought to destroy Henry Clay Frick, the man Berkman blamed for the carnage of the Homestead steel strike in the preceding weeks. Armed with a pistol and a sharpened rat-tailed file, Berkman gained easy access to the headquarters of Carnegie Steel and found his way into the second floor private office of the chairman, 43-year-old Henry Clay Frick
Henry Clay Frick
Henry Clay Frick was an American industrialist, financier, and art patron. He founded the H. C. Frick & Company coke manufacturing company, was chairman of the Carnegie Steel Company, and played a major role in the formation of the giant U.S. Steel steel manufacturing concern...
. Berkman forced his way into Frick's private office on the heels of a porter who had taken in his card. He opened fire, and Frick fell to the ground with three bullets in his body. Berkman was fended off by Leishman, Frick’s second in command, who was in Frick’s office at the time.
Amid the growing rancor between Frick and Carnegie, Leishman attempted to steer a middle course. This was thwarted when Frick engaged a stratagem to orchestrate the ouster of the man who has saved his life from the presidency of Carnegie Steel, and his removal from the Western Pennsylvanian business scene. Frick alerted Carnegie to Leishman's speculation in the stock market, a practice that Carnegie engaged in freely, but abhorred in his subordinates. Frick worked behind the scenes, with Philander Knox to see that Leishman would be offered the post as ambassador to Switzerland.
Under pressure from both men, Leishman withdrew from Carnegie service in June 1897, to accept the appointment by President William McKinley
William McKinley
William McKinley, Jr. was the 25th President of the United States . He is best known for winning fiercely fought elections, while supporting the gold standard and high tariffs; he succeeded in forging a Republican coalition that for the most part dominated national politics until the 1930s...
as United States Ambassador to Switzerland. Thereafter, Leishman became United States Ambassador to Turkey
United States Ambassador to Turkey
The United States of America has maintained many high level contacts with Turkey since the nineteenth century.-Chargé d'Affaires:*George W. Erving *David Porter -Minister Resident:*David Porter *Dabney Smith Carr...
in 1900, United States Ambassador to Italy
United States Ambassador to Italy
Since 1840, the United States has had diplomatic representation in the Italian Republic and its predecessor nation, the Kingdom of Italy, with a break in relations from 1941 to 1944 while Italy and the U.S. were at war during World War II. The U.S. Mission to Italy is headed by the Embassy of the...
in 1909 and United States Ambassador to Germany
United States Ambassador to Germany
The United States has had diplomatic relations with the nation of Germany and its predecessor nation, the Kingdom of Prussia, since 1835. These relations were broken twice while Germany and the United States were at war...
in 1911.
Years later, as a board member of the Equitable Life Insurance Company, Frick used a similar scheme to wheedle the removal of James Hazen Hyde
James Hazen Hyde
James Hazen Hyde was the son of Henry Baldwin Hyde, the founder of The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States. James Hazen Hyde was twenty-three when he inherited the majority shares in the billion-dollar Equitable Life Assurance Society in 1899...
(the founder's only son and heir) from the United States to France by seeking an appointment for him to become United States Ambassador to France. Unlike Leishman a decade before, Hyde, rebuffed Frick's plan. However, Hyde did go to live in France, where he met and eventually married Leishman's eldest daughter, Marthe.
While serving in Turkey, Leishman was instrumental in effecting the safe release of missionary Miss Ellen Stone as well as bringing about the purchase of the first overseas property to serve as a United States embassy, the Palazzo Corpi. He also distinguished himself for diplomatic tact and dexterity in his negotiations with Turkey for full rights for American citizens and schools in that country, and in his pressing with equal success his insistence that the American minister should have access to the Sultan. His office was elevated to the rank of Extraordinary Ambassador and Plenipotentiary in 1906. While serving in Italy, Leishman purchased the much beloved and often reproduced painting called the Madonna of the Streets. The painting's current whereabouts is not known.
Marriage and children
On September 9, 1880, at Homewood Chapel, Leishman married Julia Crawford (1862-1918), the daughter of Edward Crawford of Pittsburgh, and his wife, Nancy Harriet Ferguson. To them were born three children, Martha (1882-1944), Nancy Louise (1894-1983) and John, Jr. (1887-1942).Leishman's daughters made European marriages that were much talked of at the time. The American press considered these notably brilliant matches even among the many monied American young ladies (those "lovely trans-Atlantic invaders" as Edith Wharton
Edith Wharton
Edith Wharton , was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, short story writer, and designer.- Early life and marriage:...
called them) who found suitable titled European husbands in the pre-World War I marriage market. However, some titled Europeans felt that the Leishman girls had wed above their social station.
Martha (who later styled herself Marthe) married first Count Louis de Gontaut-Biron, and secondly the heir to the AXA Equitable Life Insurance Company
AXA Equitable Life Insurance Company
AXA Equitable Life Insurance Company, formerly The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States, also known as The Equitable, was founded by Henry Baldwin Hyde in 1859. In 1991, AXA, a French insurance company, acquired majority control of The Equitable...
(formerly The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States) fortune, James Hazen Hyde
James Hazen Hyde
James Hazen Hyde was the son of Henry Baldwin Hyde, the founder of The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States. James Hazen Hyde was twenty-three when he inherited the majority shares in the billion-dollar Equitable Life Assurance Society in 1899...
who was the only son and heir of Henry Baldwin Hyde
Henry Baldwin Hyde
Henry Baldwin Hyde, , founded The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States in 1859. It became, by the year of Hyde's death, the largest life insurance company in the world....
. Their son was Henry Hyde of the Office of Strategic Services
Office of Strategic Services
The Office of Strategic Services was a United States intelligence agency formed during World War II. It was the wartime intelligence agency, and it was a predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency...
(OSS) in World War II. In Switzerland in 1898 she was painted by the Swiss-born American portrait painter Adolfo Müller-Ury
Adolfo Müller-Ury
Adolfo Muller-Ury was a Swiss-born American portrait painter and impressionistic painter of roses and still life.-Heritage and early life in Switzerland:...
(1862-1947). As the Countess de Gontaut-Biron, Marthe was a society hostess and couturier Coco Chanel
Coco Chanel
Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel was a pioneering French fashion designer whose modernist thought, menswear-inspired fashions, and pursuit of expensive simplicity made her an important figure in 20th-century fashion. She was the founder of one of the most famous fashion brands, Chanel...
's first aristocratic client. Marthe was a favorite of George V
George V of the United Kingdom
George V was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 through the First World War until his death in 1936....
and a close personal friend of Mr. and Mrs. Cole Porter
Cole Porter
Cole Albert Porter was an American composer and songwriter. Born to a wealthy family in Indiana, he defied the wishes of his domineering grandfather and took up music as a profession. Classically trained, he was drawn towards musical theatre...
and Francis Poulenc
Francis Poulenc
Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc was a French composer and a member of the French group Les six. He composed solo piano music, chamber music, oratorio, choral music, opera, ballet music, and orchestral music...
.
Nancy married first Karl, 13th Prince von Croy, of the House of Croy
House of Croÿ
The House of Croÿ is an international family of European mediatized nobility which held a seat in the Imperial Diet from 1486, and was elevated to the rank of Imperial Princes in 1594...
, amid extensive newspaper coverage in Europe and the United States of a notoriety not to be surpassed until the romance between Wallis Simpson and Edward VIII, because Kaiser Wilhelm II refused to give his official permission for their marriage; Nancy, being a commoner and an American, was not considered a good match for the prince who ranked among the highest nobility of titled Europeans. Karl's aunt, the formidable Princess Isabella of Croÿ
Princess Isabella of Croÿ
Princess Isabella Hedwig Franziska Natalie of Croÿ was the daughter of Rudolf, Duke of Croÿ, and his wife Princess Natalie of Ligne.-Marriage and issue:...
, wife of Archduke Friedrich, Duke of Teschen
Archduke Friedrich, Duke of Teschen
Archduke Friedrich, Duke of Teschen was a member of the House of Habsburg and the Supreme Commander of the Austro-Hungarian Army during World War I.-Early life:...
, was chief among the European nobility who vehemently protested the match. They were wed, nonetheless; today their grandson is the present Duke of Croy. Nancy married secondly Andreas d'Oldenberg, Danish ambassador to France.
John Jr. was for a time married to New York socialite Elizabeth Helene Demarest, whose daughter by her subsequent marriage to Lord Alastair Sutherland-Leveson-Gower is Elizabeth Millicent Leveson-Gower, 24th Countess of Sutherland
Elizabeth Sutherland, 24th Countess of Sutherland
Elizabeth Millicent Sutherland, 24th Countess of Sutherland is a British peeress.-Early life:She was born Elizabeth Millicent Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, the only child of Major Lord Alastair Sutherland-Leveson-Gower , a son of the 4th Duke of Sutherland, and his wife, the former Elizabeth Demarest...
.
While serving abroad, the Leishmans were often in Paris, at Deauville
Deauville
Deauville is a commune in the Calvados département in the Basse-Normandie region in northwestern France.With its racecourse, harbour, international film festival, marinas, conference centre, villas, Grand Casino and sumptuous hotels, Deauville is regarded as the "queen of the Norman beaches" and...
, Monte Carlo
Monte Carlo
Monte Carlo is an administrative area of the Principality of Monaco....
, or in the Swiss or Italian lakes, always a part of a gittering circle of celebrated American and European friends. Julia Leishman was instrumental in forming and serving as the first president of the Paris Skating Club; among her intimate friends who shared in this Paris innovation was the Baroness Henri de Rothschild
Rothschild
Rothschild is a common German surname. It is a habitational name from a house distinguished with a red shield , the earliest recorded example dating from the 13th century...
.
Later life
As a result of the impasse between himself and Kaiser Wilhelm II which was created by his daughter Nancy's marriage to Karl von Croy, Leishman left Berlin and retired to private life in 1914. His wife Julia died in 1918; Leishman, on March 27, 1924--both in Monte CarloMonte Carlo
Monte Carlo is an administrative area of the Principality of Monaco....
. They are buried in the Cemeterie de Monaco.