Albert Gallatin: Welcome, welcome to Friendship Hill. I am flattered greatly by your presence.

The simple house that, you visit today fostered my happiest memories and witnessed my darkest moments. Here I sought fortune and adventure.

Yet this place, once so dear to me, became the home of unrealized dreams… and I, I was the dreamer: Abraham Alphonse Albert Gallatin.

In my youth, the romance of America was too powerful to resist. With good friends and few funds, I left my native Switzerland forever; to explore the American frontier.

As an itinerant surveyor, I saw the raw potential and beauty of this primeval place. The land was vast and wild, full of promise for men with vision and mine was to build an industrial community, New Geneva.

I acquired land overlooking the Monongahela River, Friendship Hill, the hope of my American dream. I had the good fortune to find a loving wife, Sophia, but tragedy denied my love.

Mourning my loss, I devoted myself to public service. I was anxious to serve our new republic. In time, Hannah Nicholson became my wife and long-time companion. By then, I was embroiled in the Whiskey Rebellion. To my great regret I was unable to moderate the violence.

Thereafter, I became an active Anti-Federalist and proudly led the fight in Congress to elect Thomas Jefferson as our third President. I then became Secretary of the US Treasury. Now some say I have served too long, almost thirteen years in fact. But I do take pride in reducing the national debt and financing the Louisiana Purchase.

For America these were exciting times, times of progress and expansion. But for the Gallatin Family, a time of great sorrow when three of our six children died in infancy. But I put my sadness behind me as I sailed for Europe to help negotiate the end of the War of 1812.

After this modicum of diplomatic success, I accepted an appointment as Minister of France.

After years of foreign service, Friendship Hill still beckoned. Yet my neglected enterprises had failed and my family had become accustomed to city ways. I was compelled to sell, but, I never lost sight of my Friendship Hill.

The evening of my life was devoted to banking and my interests in education, history and ethnology. An ordinary man, an ordinary life dedicated to the service of our country and love of family.

Today you face the same dilemmas of democracy as did I. Perhaps the Gallatin Family suggests my legacy to you: Persevere, persevere! Remember me as you will, but ensure you preserve the right to democratic government, to free enterprise and to family security. In all things insist on balance: shun the enslavement of debt and the entrapments of war.

For it is you who keeps these dreams alive.