County of city: Daviess County
Location of city hall: Grand St. & Maple St., Gallatin
Location of city: MO-13, just S. of MO-6
Elevation: 922'
Population: 1,762 (2013)
The Person:
Albert Gallatin
• Secretary of the US Treasury, US Treasury, 1801–1814
• Representative, US House of Representatives, 1795–1801
• Senator, US Senate, 1793–1794
• Born: January 29, 1761
• Died: August 12, 1849
"Albert Gallatin was a Swiss-American politician who served as a United States senator from 1793 to 1794, member of the House of Representatives from 1795 to 1801, secretary of the Treasury from 1801 to 1814, minister to France from 1816 to 1823, and ambassador to the United Kingdom from 1826 to 1827. He was the longest-serving secretary of the Treasury, serving under presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.
"Gallatin was born in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1761. At the age of nineteen, he left Geneva and travelled to America, settling in Pennsylvania. There, he became increasingly involved in politics and was elected to the state legislature in 1790. He was elected to the US Senate in 1793, but several members of Congress filed a protest against him arguing that he did not meet the constitutional requirements to be a senator because he had not been an American citizen for nine years. Gallatin challenged this claim, but he lost his appeal and was removed from office.
"Gallatin was elected to the US House of Representatives in 1795, helping to establish the House Ways and Means Committee. In 1797, he became the leader of the Democratic-Republicans in the House, the equivalent of today’s House Majority Leader. He became the party’s financial expert, and in 1801 President Thomas Jefferson appointed him secretary of the Treasury.
"As secretary, Gallatin reduced the national debt and secured financing for the Louisiana Purchase. When James Madison became president in 1809, he reappointed Gallatin. Gallatin strongly supported re-chartering the first Bank of the United States, which he argued was essential to securing public finances and ensuring a sound national currency. But agrarian Democratic-Republicans like Jefferson opposed the institution because they felt it placed too much power in the hands of bankers. Gallatin urged Congress to renew the Bank’s twenty-year charter before it expired in 1811.The proposal failed by one vote. As a result, the United States had to repay more than $7 million to foreign stakeholders in the Bank one year before the war with Britain in 1812. Without a national bank, Gallatin struggled to finance the war.
"In 1813, Gallatin took a leave of absence from the Treasury to head a delegation to negotiate an end to hostilities with Great Britain. After the war, he served as the American minister to France from 1816 to 1823. In 1828, he moved with his family to New York City. He wrote an article for the American Quarterly Review entitled “Considerations on the Currency and the Banking System of the United States,” in which he outlined a banking system for the United States with a national currency backed by gold and silver and issued by a single national bank. These recommendations were part of the debate over the re-chartering of the second Bank of the United States, which President Andrew Jackson vetoed in 1832. Gallatin’s proposal was a precursor to the gold standard, which the United States adopted in the late nineteenth century, and the Federal Reserve System, which the United States created in the twentieth century.
"Gallatin also helped establish New York University and published an extensive study on the ethnology and linguistics of Native Americans. He was married twice and died on August 12, 1849, a few months after the death of his second wife, Hannah." ~ Federal Reserve History [link below]
The Place:
"This Grand River town, platted in 1837 as the seat of Daviess County, is named in honor of Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury, 1801-1813. Settlers were in the area as early as 1830 and in 1836 the county was formed.
"Established in Gallatin were the Daviess County Female Academy and Masonic Hall, chartered in 1855. In 1893, Grand River College was moved here from Edinburg in Grundy County.
"Gallatin, settled on land ceded the U.S. by the Osage Indians, 1808, and by the Sauk, Fox, and Iowa tribes, 1824, served a fertile agricultural area of the Green Hills Region of North Missouri.
"Gallatin was the scene of the trial of Frank James, elder brother of Jesse, after he voluntarily surrendered to Gov. Thomas T. Crittenden on charges of participating in a holdup of a train near Winston to the southwest. The trial, 1882, highlighted by the appearance of Confederate Gen. Joseph O. Shelby as a defense witness, end in acquittal for Frank James.
"Here lived A.M. Dockery, Governor of Missouri, 1901-1905, and Joshua W. Alexander, Secretary of Commerce of U.S. 1919-1921" ~ State Historical Society of Missouri
"Gallatin was named for Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury under President Thomas Jefferson
"Gallatin, the county seat, was founded in 1837. The town of Gallatin was platted before ever the patent was issued. Medders Vanderpool surveyed the town and laid off the blocks and lots in December, 1837, and the first sale of lots took place January 8, 1838...The first house was erected by Jacob Stollinger, and the first cabin for a dram shop by George W. Worthington, of the firm of Worthington & McKinney, of Millport. Some claim that Worthington got his cabin up first...
"John A. Williams started the first grocery store and his license was dated the 7th of April, 1837...
"In 1857 Gallatin had a population of about 400, and was still the only town in the county. To be sure, old Pattonsburg began to be heard of; Salem was getting one or two houses together, and Jamesport adopted its name the following year--1858, and must have had fully a score of people at that very time.
"Gallatin covers nearly a section of land. It was incorporated November 21, 1857. When Millport was losing ground by the location of the county seat at Gallatin, the post-office was brought to the new town and G. W. Worthington was postmaster and he probably also officiated at Millport, and as he was one of the first, if not the first to put up a cabin at the new county seat, he brought it with him." ~ History of Daviess County, 1882, Birdsall & Dean, pp. 453, 457-459, 519.)