Like so many of the nouveau riche of that period, or parvenus as Mark Twain referred to them, the Leiters decided to establish themselves in Washington, DC. The couple had four children: Joseph, Nancy, Marguerite (Daisy) and Mary Victoria. Mary was the daughter of Benjamin Carver, a wealthy banker from Utica, New York and a descendant of John Carver, the first president of the Plymouth Colony. Leiter married Mary Theresa Carver in 1866. William LeBaron Jenney’s Leiter Building in Chicago. He also served as the second president of the Chicago Art Institute, provided a new building for the Chicago Historical Society, and donated generously to the Chicago Public Library. While still in Chicago, he became associated with the Chicago School of architecture and was the builder of the first true steel skeleton building-the William LeBaron Jenney’s Leiter Building (1889).
Leiter developed an interest in real estate and invested heavily in the city, helping it to recover from the fire of 1871 and building his already immense fortune. Marshall Field and Company survived until 2005, when it was acquired by Macy’s Inc. Deciding to retire from the dry goods business, Leiter sold his interest in the company to Field in 1881, and the company name was changed to Marshall Field and Company. In 1867, Palmer left the business and the company was renamed Field, Leiter & Co. With a fellow employee, Marshall Field, Leiter bought an interest in the store and in 1865 sold it to go into business with Potter Palmer as Field, Palmer, Leiter & Co. Leiter began working as a clerk in the village store in Leitersburg, but in 1855 at the age of 21 he moved to Chicago to work as a clerk in a dry goods store there. While some of his ancestors were Mennonites, Levi Leiter was raised as a Lutheran. Levi Ziegler Leiter was born in Leitersburg, Maryland (just north of Hagerstown) in the town founded by and named after his grandfather, Abraham Leiter. On either side of the statue that dominates his tomb are the following two stanzas from William Cullen Bryant’s poem, “Thanatopsis” which would seem to indicate that Hubbard did not believe he had anything to be ashamed of:Īs the French proverb goes, “There is no pillow so soft as a clear conscience”.The current site of the large International-style hotel at 1500 New Hampshire Avenue was once home to one of the largest and grandest mansions in Washington, built by Levi Ziegler Leiter (1834-1904).
Hubbard’s reputation was nearly instantly tainted, but when he died less than ten years later, he left the bulk of his fortune to the city-some believe to polish his tarnished legacy. It caused many in the city to see Hubbard as a bit of a scoundrel who cheated the city out the bequest-which some estimated the fortune at $300,000-which was a King’s ransom in the 19 th Century. John contested the will and won the fortune which he added to his own sizeable holdings.
When his well-to-do Aunt passed away in 1890, she left the bulk of her fortune to the city of Montpelier. What we know to be true is that the monument was created for John Erastus Hubbard (1847 – 1899) who was a prominent businessman and citizen in Montpelier. Others report seeing the eyes of the sculpture turn to glowing red, though, no photographic evidence of that has surfaced. Locals also tell of screams coming from the cemetery at night in the vicinity of the monument. Supposedly, if you sit on the lap of the sculpture, something bad will happen to you-some say in seven hours, some say seven days, some say seven months the amount of time varies depending on who retells the story of the curse. What is plain from looking at the Hubbard monument is that the “she” is a “he.” Nonetheless, the name, Black Agnes, persists and a mythology of its own has been created around the sculpture. The seated sculpture, that became known as Black Agnus and once decorated General Angus’s monument, was a knock-off of the sculpture that Augustus Saint-Gaudens created for the Adams monument in the Rock Creek Cemetery at Washington, D.C. The monument may have been given the name based on a sculpture that was erected for General Felix Agnus, the publisher of the Baltimore American who was buried in the Druid Ridge Cemetery, at Pikesville, Maryland, outside of Baltimore. Oddly, however, this monument has become known in local lore as Black Agnes. Thanatos, in Greek mythology, was the personification of death. The monument is neither black nor Agnes-it is green and it Thanatos. Hubbard monument in the Green Mount Cemetery at Montpelier, Vermont, features a statue of Thanatos created by famed sculptor, Karl Bitter.
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