John Pintard Papers

John Pintard was born in New York City May 18, 1759, son of John and Mary (Cannon) Pintard. Both his parents died within a year of his birth, and Pintard was brought up by his paternal uncle, Lewis Pintard (1732-1818), a New York merchant. Under the guidance of his uncle, John Pintard attended the classical school of Hempstead, Long Island, and entered the College of New Jersey (Princeton University) in the class of 1776. During the American Revolution he served as Assistant Agent for American Prisoners, under his uncle Lewis, and at the close of the war, joined Lewis's mercantile business. On November 12, 1784, he married a distant cousin, Elizabeth Brasher (1765-1838).

Pintard became established in New York City as its business revived after the Revolution, and by the time it became the capital of the United States under the new Constitution, he was active in the mercantile, social, and cultural life of the city. On May 10, 1787, he was appointed secretary of the Mutual Assurance Company for Insuring Houses from Loss by Fire in New York, until his resignation on February 14, 1792. He was elected an Assistant Alderman of the East (Second) Ward of the city, September 29, 1789, and was re-elected, serving actively until March 12, 1792. He represented New York in the 14th session of the State Assembly, January-March, 1791, held in New York City. In November, 1790, he was appointed by New Jersey one of five commissioners to erect bridges over the Hackensack and Passaic Rivers. In 1790 and 1791, he was secretary of the New-York Manufacturing Society.

Pintard's progress was halted by his disastrous financial involvement in the failure of William Duer (1747-1799), who became insolvent and was imprisoned for debt in 1792. Duer's economic ties were so wide in the area that his financial collapse set off the first financial panic in New York City. Pintard surrendered everything he possessed, but because of some unsatisfied creditors, was arrested and confined for debt in the Newark prison from July 15, 1797, until August 6, 1798. In September, 1800, John Pintard took advantage of the federal "Act to establish an uniform system of bankruptcy throughout the United States," approved April 4, 1800. Pintard made an extended visit to New Orleans in 1801, and his favorable letters about the city to Secretary of State Albert Gallatin influenced President Thomas Jefferson in his decision to purchase the Louisiana Territory.

Though never reaching his former level of wealth, John Pintard firmly re-established himself in New York City. In March, 1804, he was appointed New York City Inspector, and in May, 1807, Clerk to the Common Council of the City. In that year he was elected secretary of the Mutual Insurance Company, successor of the Mutual Assurance Company of which he had been secretary 1787-1792, and which became later in the century the Knickerbocker Fire Insurance Company. That salaried position was Pintard's chief source of income during the next twenty years, until his retirement in 1829.

John Pintard was one of the earliest and staunchest advocates for the preservation and study of the history of New York and the United States. Pintard began to work towards the establishment of a historical society in the city in early 1804, and he was the leader in the organization of the New-York Historical Society in November, 1804. He served as its Recording Secretary from 1805 to 1819, as its Librarian, 1810-1811, and as Treasurer, 1819-1827. His other social and cultural activities included serving as trustee of the New York Society Library, Senior Warden and then Master of Holland Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons. He also served as sagamore of the Tammany Society, which funded the American Museum, initially a single room exhibit space in old City Hall. John Pintard served as a trustee and secretary of the museum, which was sold from John Scudder to P.T. Barnum in 1841 and became Barnum's American Museum. Pintard was also actively involved in the American Academy of Fine Arts, the Chamber of Commerce, Sailors' Snug Harbor, free schools and Sunday schools, the American Bible Society, the Erie Canal, the first Bank for Savings in New York, the Episcopal Church, particularly the old French Huguenot Church of St. Esprit, and the General Theological Seminary.

His sons died in youth, and his elder daughter Eliza Noel married, in 1810, a Kentuckian, Richard Davidson, and lived in Pinckneyville, Mississippi Territory and then New Orleans. His younger daughter, Louise Hall Pintard, married, on April 4, 1824, Thomas L. Servoss (1786-1866), son of Jacob and Isabella Servoss of Philadelphia, a widower with one son, Thomas Courtney Servoss. The Servoss family moved to New York, with Thomas engaged as a merchant, and Mr. and Mrs. Pintard lived in their home. Pintard also had a cook named Tamar Felmetta for over a decade. Eliza died in 1833, and Mrs. Pintard died on October 13, 1838. John Pintard died in New York City, June 21, 1844, at the age of eighty-five. His remains were placed in the family vault under St. Clement's Church on Amity (West Third) Street, and were removed in June 1910, upon the demolition of the edifice, to St. Michael's Cemetery, Queens, NY.

Source: Pintard, J., & Barck, D.C. (1940). Letters from John Pintard to his daughter, Eliza Noel Pintard Davidson, 1816-1833. 4 Volumes. New York, Printed for the New-York Historical Society.