Background
Thomas Leiper was born at Strathaven, Lanark, Scotland, the son of Thomas and Helen (Hamilton) Leiper.
Thomas Leiper was born at Strathaven, Lanark, Scotland, the son of Thomas and Helen (Hamilton) Leiper.
He was educated in the schools of Glasgow and Edinburgh. His parents wished him to become a minister of the Scottish Kirk.
In 1763, after the death of his father, Leiper joined his brothers who had emigrated to America some years previously. Landing in Maryland in June 1763, he was first employed as a clerk in the store of John Semple at Port Tobacco. Later he went to Frederick County, and in 1765, to Philadelphia, where he entered the employ of his cousin, Gavin Hamilton, a tobacco exporter.
In a few years he left his cousin and opened a business storing and exporting tobacco. He also built several large mills in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, for the manufacture of snuff and other tobacco products; and in 1780 he bought and operated stone quarries near his mills. Through the exercise of a high order of ability, energy, and business tact he soon accumulated a considerable fortune.
Some time before the Declaration of Independence he raised a fund for open resistance to the Crown, and when war was declared he contributed large sums to the cause. He was one of the original and most active members of the 1st Troop, Philadelphia City Cavalry (formed November 17, 1774), taking part in the battles of Trenton, Princeton, Brandywine, and Germantown, and in several skirmishes. He was ranked as first sergeant until 1794, when he became second lieutenant, and then, treasurer of the troop. As such he carried the last subsidies of the French to the American army at Yorktown.
After the war, he acted with the troop in quelling several civil riots in Philadelphia. One of the leading Democrats in Pennsylvania, he was in strong opposition to President Washington and the Federalists; later he acted as a major of the "Horse of the Legion" raised, largely at his expense, to oppose the "Black Cockade" forces of the friends of the Adams administration.
In his business affairs he was enterprising and progressive, adopting new machines and improvements in agricultural implements. He constructed, for example, in 1809, an experimental railroad in Philadelphia, on which vehicles were drawn by horses. After various experiments he became satisfied that the principle was sound, and in 1810 he built and equipped a tramway from his quarries on Crum Creek, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, to tide-water, a distance of three-quarters of a mile. This road continued in use until 1828, when it was superseded by a canal. He also subscribed largely to the stock of various turnpikes and canals in Pennsylvania, often without hope of any immediate return.
He made it a rule never to accept offices of pay or profit; but, without ever seeking them, he was elected or appointed to many of trust and distinction. He was a presidential elector in 1808, and in 1825, a director of the Bank of Pennsylvania and the Bank of the United States; commissioner for the defense of the city in the War of 1812; a member and ultimately president (1801-1805, 1808-1810, 1812 - 1814), of the Common Councils of the City of Philadelphia; one of the executive committee of the St. Andrew's Society; and one of the founders and first officers (1824) of the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. He died at his country estate, "Avondale, " in Delaware County, Pennsylvania.
On November 3, 1778, Leiper married Elizabeth Coultas Gray, and to them were born thirteen children.