David Parish was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

-born land speculator and financier who played a major role in financing the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 military effort in the War of 1812

War of 1812

The War of 1812 was a military conflict fought between the forces of the United States of America and those of the British Empire. The Americans declared war in 1812 for several reasons, including trade restrictions because of Britain's ongoing war with France, impressment of American merchant...

 and in chartering the Second Bank of the United States

Second Bank of the United States

The Second Bank of the United States was chartered in 1816, five years after the First Bank of the United States lost its own charter. The Second Bank of the United States was initially headquartered in Carpenters' Hall, Philadelphia, the same as the First Bank, and had branches throughout the...

.

Parish was born in 1778 in Hamburg, Germany, the grandson of an English merchant who had transferred his business to Hamburg from Scotland.

He played a major role in the development of St. Lawrence

St. Lawrence County, New York

St. Lawrence County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2010 census, the population was 111,944. The county seat is Canton. The county is named for the Saint Lawrence River, which in turn was named for the Catholic saint on whose Feast day the river was discovered by...

 and Jefferson

Jefferson County, New York

Jefferson County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2010 census, the population was 116,229. It is named after Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States of America, and president at the time the county was created in 1805...

 counties in northern New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 state, where he made his home in Ogdensburg

Ogdensburg, New York

Ogdensburg is a city in St. Lawrence County, New York, United States. The population was 11,128 at the 2010 census. In the late 18th century, European-American settlers named the community after American land owner and developer Samuel Ogden....

 and built a blast furnace

Blast furnace

A blast furnace is a type of metallurgical furnace used for smelting to produce industrial metals, generally iron.In a blast furnace, fuel and ore and flux are continuously supplied through the top of the furnace, while air is blown into the bottom of the chamber, so that the chemical reactions...

 at Rossie

Rossie, New York

Rossie is a town in St. Lawrence County, New York, United States. The population was 787 at the 2000 census. The town is named after the sister of an early land owner....

. The town of Parishville

Parishville, New York

Parishville is a town in the east-central part of St. Lawrence County, east of Potsdam, in the state of New York, United States. The population was 2,049 at the 2000 census.- History :...

 is named for him.

Parish emigrated to the United States in 1806, settling first in Philadelphia, then two years later acquired 200,000 acres of land in the St. Lawrence River Valley to sell as farmland to settlers. Sympathetic to the anti-war Federalist Party, he nevertheless brokered a $7.5 million loan to the cash-strapped Republican administration of James Madison

James Madison

James Madison, Jr. was an American statesman and political theorist. He was the fourth President of the United States and is hailed as the “Father of the Constitution” for being the primary author of the United States Constitution and at first an opponent of, and then a key author of the United...

  in 1813 to continue prosecuting the war. Historian Allan Taylor asserts that for that support, indispensable with Congress unwilling to raise taxes to fund the conflict, Parish gained the political leverage to insist on neutrality for the St. Lawrence Valley and peace negotiations with the British. Despite the strategic military importance of the St. Lawrence Valley, the US made only one half-hearted and disastrous attempt, in November 1813, to use it as an invasion corridor to attack Montreal

Montreal

Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

 and cut off the supply route from Lower Canada

Lower

Lower may refer to:*Lower Township, New Jersey*Lower Receiver *Lower Wick Gloucestershire, England-People:*Robert A. Lower, American Civil War Medal of Honor recipient*Cyrus B. Lower - American Civil War Medal of Honor recipient...

 to Upper Canada

Upper Canada

The Province of Upper Canada was a political division in British Canada established in 1791 by the British Empire to govern the central third of the lands in British North America and to accommodate Loyalist refugees from the United States of America after the American Revolution...

. The rest of the time, American and British interests continued their thriving transborder trade and generally peaceful relations as if there were no war between their countries, a fact Taylor attributes to Parish and his supporters and agents in the valley. Throughout the war, the focus of US military operations on land continued to be western Lake Ontario and the strategically marginal Niagara Peninsula

Niagara Peninsula

The Niagara Peninsula is the portion of Southern Ontario, Canada lying between the south shore of Lake Ontario and the north shore of Lake Erie. It stretches from the Niagara River in the east to Hamilton, Ontario in the west. The population of the peninsula is roughly 1,000,000 people...

.

He died of drowning in the Danube River.

Parish was the basis for a character in the novel Anthony Adverse

Anthony Adverse

Anthony Adverse is a 1936 American drama film directed by Mervyn LeRoy. The screenplay by Sheridan Gibney is based on the sprawling 1,224-page novel of the same title by Hervey Allen.-Plot:...

by Hervey Allen

Hervey Allen

William Hervey Allen was an American author.-Biography:He graduated from University of Pittsburgh in 1915, where he also became a member of the Sigma Chi Fraternity....

.