Gallatin
ALBERT (gal'a-tin), an American financier; born in Geneva, Switzerland, Jan. 29, 1761. He was graduated at the university there in 1779. In 1780 he went to the United States, and for a time teacher of French in was Harvard College. In 1786 he removed to Pennsylvania, became a member of the State Legislature, and in 1793 he was elected to the United States Senate, but was declared ineligible. From 1795 to 1801 he served in the House of Representatives, and from 1801 to 1813 he was Secretary of the Treasury. He took an important part in the negotiations for peace with England in 1814, and signed the treaty of Ghent. From 1815 to 1823 he was minister at Paris, and in 1826 he was sent to London as ambassador extraordinary. On his return in 1827 he settled in New York, and devoted much of his time to literature, being chiefly occupied in historical and ethnological researches. He was one of the founders and the first president of the GALLEGOS Ethnological Society of America; and from 1843 to his death he was president of the New York Historical Society. His works include publications on finance, politics, and ethnology; among these last are "The Indian Tribes East of the Rocky Mountains, etc." (1836), and "Notes on the Semi-Civilized Nations of Mexico, Yucatan, and Central America" (1845). He died Aug. 12, 1849.