[3] During the Revolutionary War, he served as a lieutenant in a patriot militia unit, until the British occupation of New York City.
His business offices at 39 Wall Street were close to Federal Hall, the meeting place for the Continental Congress between 1785 and 1789 under the Articles of Confederation.
And when Congress dismissed for the day, and statesmen and socialites took their Wall Street airing, Mr. McCormick and his cronies had a word about each.
Let the Secretary of War lumber past that observatory stoop, and the latest quip would be whispered concerning General Knox's unfortunate bulk – "Mrs John Adams' daughter says 'he is not half so fat as he was'; she means before he wore stays".
And when chubby John Adams himself strutted by "like a monkey just put into breeches", the stoop recalled how Senator Izard proposed that the Vice-President be titled "His Rotundity".
The board of directors was elected on March 15, and included McCormick, Hamilton, Samuel Franklin, Isaac Roosevelt, and John Vanderbilt.
Alexander Macomb (1748–1831) was a Belfast-born merchant who had made money during the war as a fur trader in Michigan and then moved to New York to become a land speculator and shipping magnate.
Sales did not keep up with the due dates for payments on the loan, and during the Panic of 1792 Macomb was sent to debtors' prison with debts of more than $300,000, a fortune at the time.
[3] In 1784, he became founder and first president of an Irish-American charitable and social organization, the Society of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick in the City of New York.
He saw offices and business crowding into the cellar and floors and garrets of the vacated buildings; he saw new buildings put up for offices; but he was firm, and finally was left alone, the only gentleman who continued to reside in his own house, in the good old fashioned style.
[9]McCormick died in 1834, and his house was torn down not long afterwards, and in 1836-42 the Merchant's Exchange was built on its site at 55-57 Wall Street.