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William was born out of wedlock in 1810 in St. Croix, Danish West Indies to a
Jewish Danish
sailor and a black woman who worked on his father’s
plantation. He was educated in Flensburg, Denmark and then migrated to
New Orleans, Louisiana in 1822.
William was naturalized in 1824 in New Orleans and inherited money from
his foster father’s business there. He fell in love with a woman who
abandoned him days before their wedding when she found out he was
mulatto. William liquidated his holdings and piloted the 106-ton
schooner Julia Ann to California, settling in Yerba Buena, which, in
1847, became San Francisco.
Leidesdorff took out Mexican citizenship in 1844 and was granted 35,000
acres of land in the Sacramento Valley. He served as Vice Consul of
Mexico from 1845 to 1846. Being fluent in several languages, in 1846 he
translated the proclamation that California was part of the United
States. He served as a member of the city’s first town council, was
instrumental in creating San Francisco’s first school, was the city’s
first treasurer, opened the city’s first hotel, and owned and mastered the first steamboat
on San Francisco Bay.
He died suddenly in 1848 and was buried in San Francisco’s oldest
building, Mission Delores. Leidesdorf Street was named after him.
Because of gold discoveries just before his death, his land had
increased in value and made his estate worth over $1,500,000.
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William
Alexander Leidesdorff: First Black Millionaire, American Consul and California Pioneer
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