Edward Davison Letters on Early American Merchants in Buenos Aires

Following their revolutions against colonial rule in the early 1800s, many newly independent South American nations saw an influx of merchants from the United States moving there to start new business ventures. The first (US) American commercial house in Buenos Aires, Argentina, was established in 1818 by David DeForest. In 1834, two Massachusetts men, Edward Davison and Francis Leland, opened the house of Davison and Leland to compete with DeForest and other American commercial firms in the city. The firm dealt in various types of cargo shipped in from Cuba, Europe, and the United States. It had offices in Montevideo, Uruguay, across the bay from Buenos Aires on the opposite side of the Río de la Plata, which empties into the Atlantic Ocean. Two other merchants by the names of Zimmermann and Tileston bought out Davison and Leland in September 1835, but Davison stayed in the city and would later be known as “one of the foremost merchants in Buenos Ayres” (Boston Post, April 2, 1879).

Edward Davison was born about 1803 in Gloucester, Massachusetts. He married Emeline Leland in 1825, and they would have five children. He died on January 19, 1874, in Boston. Emeline Leland’s brother Francis (Frank) Leland was born in Boston in 1807. He became engaged to the daughter of Francisco Aguilar y Leal, a Spanish soldier and merchant who was a former leader of the Uruguayan independence movement. In 1835, he married Eufrasia Aguilar (her last name has also been rendered "Aquila") in Maldonado, Uruguay. Francis Leland was later president of the New York County National Bank (1857-1885) and the Sixth National Bank (1863-circa 1883), and died on May 15, 1885, in Manhattan.