City Administrator Tony Stonecypher presented Mayor Ballew a framed copy of a historic letter written by Albert Gallatin to J.D. Garesche, Esq., which was donated to the City of Gallatin by the Friendship Hill Association of New Geneva, Penn.
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The letter, presented during the meeting of the Gallatin Board of Aldermen held July 24 is written by Mr. Gallatin in 1823. Mr. Gallatin was Secretary of the Treasury. In the letter, he is corresponding with J.D. Garesche, who was the acting counsel of the United States serving at La Rochelle, France.
The letter has to do with difficulties arising with French custom house offices demanding the register of American vessels arriving in the ports of France. The officials wanted the actual document itself, not an authenticated copy. Mr. Gallatin tells Mr. Garesche that there can be no objection to the exhibition of the paper, as long as the officials don’t keep it. It shall be “returned and deposited in your hand according to law.” The letter is signed ‘your most obedient servant Albert Gallatin.’
Friendship Hill Association, which donated the letter, said it was discovered by the West Overton Village Museum near Scottdale, Penn. West Overton was the home of 19th century industrialist, Henry Clay Frick, and in or around 1802, the location of the Old Overholt whiskey distillery. During an inventory of un-cataloged items, the original Gallatin letter was found.
It has been certified as an original document and the signature authenticated.
The West Overton Village Museum recognized that the letter’s subject matter and time-period more properly belonged with the Friendship Hill Association. The Association took possession of the letter and envelope. On May 1, 2016, the letter was formerly presented by the Association to the National Park Service.
The Friendship Hill Association was organized in 1981. The mission of the association is to work in conjunction with and to support the National Park Service and its efforts to preserve and operate Friendship Hill National Historic Site (NHS) and to discover and memorialize the history of Friendship Hill NHS, the life of Albert Gallatin, and the story of the area and its role in the development of the United States.
Albert Gallatin is best remembered for his 13 year tenure as Secretary of the Treasury during the Jefferson and Madison administrations. In that time he reduced the national debt, purchased the Louisiana Territory and funded the Lewis & Clark exploration. Gallatin’s accomplishments and contributions are highlighted at Friendship Hill, his restored country estate.
A wooden plaque received from Gallatin, hangs proudly upon the wall of the Friendship Hill National Historic Site’s Visitor Center. Etched upon its bronze facing are the following words:
“As frontier businessman, congressman, scholar, diplomat, financier, cabinet member, peace emissary and citizen, Albert Gallatin helped build America’s heritage by his great and unselfish service. Many men are honored by villages, towns and countries throughout our Nation. But no community takes more pride in its namesake than Gallatin, Missouri. Issued October 1992 on behalf of the citizens of Gallatin, Mo., by order of the Mayor Larry Tull and Board of Alderman John Sullenger, Gary Carter, Bill Walker and Carl Baker.”
Whitfield letter
It was in recognition of the city’s proclamation, that the Friendship Hill Association and its board of directors presented the framed letter and envelope to the citizens of Gallatin.
As an added treasure, Mayor Barb Ballew said Aldermen John Whitfield has donated a letter written by his mother and addressed to him in 1967 while he was a student in college at Columbia. The letter bears the first day of issue of the Albert Gallatin postage stamp.