Alexander Macomb (merchant)
Macomb had already made a fortune on land speculation in North Carolina, Georgia, and Kentucky, and believed he would make more profit in New York.
Unable to sell the New York land fast enough to meet his debts, however, he was sent to debtors' prison for a period and never regained his fortune.
In 1755, the whole family moved to Albany in the colonial Province of New York, which was a center of fur trading with the Iroquois and other Native American tribes.
On August 27, 1774, Phyn & Ellice, fur traders in Schenectady in the Mohawk Valley, sold its Detroit stock to the Macomb brothers and appointed them as its agents in that post.
They conducted a huge volume of business with the British government post at Detroit, supplying the militia as well as the colonial Indian Department.
[2] By 1785, Macomb returned to the East, settling in New York City; he followed his partner William Edgar, although they had dissolved the partnership.
[3] The city was rapidly rebuilding after the war, and men of Loyalist leanings, such as Macomb, were generally not discriminated against.
In 1788, he built a four-story brick city mansion on Broadway one block south of Trinity Church; the house had a 112 feet (34 m) frontage along one side.
[3] During this period, Macomb became active in civic affairs, using his expertise to purchase materials and direct the conversion of City Hall into Federal House for the temporary capital.
Macomb also served as the first treasurer of "New York's first scientific body, the Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, Arts and Manufactures.
"[3] In July 1791, Alexander Macomb married again, to the young widow Mrs. John Peter Rucker, née Jane Marshall.
[10][11] They had seven more children, including Elizabeth Maria Macomb (born January 7, 1795), who married Thomas Hunt Flandrau, the law partner of Aaron Burr.
