Business Prior to his entry into the Carnegie service, John Leishman had been in the service of Shoenberger Steel Company, as what was termed a "mud clerk". Mud clerks were the steel industry's representatives on the river wharf, responsible for tracking the shipping of goods: the arrival of raw materials and the departure of finished products. To ensure efficiency and success, mud clerks lived 24 hours a day in small sheds on the riverbank. This work led first to an unsuccessful venture as an independent steel broker and then a successful partnership with his friend and colleague from Shoenberger Steel, William Penn Snyder. Leishman’s social and business connections provided entrée into an extraordinarily exclusive circle of sixty-odd families, called the
South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club. It was conceived as an idyllic summer colony, bought and developed by
Henry Clay Frick in
Cambria County, Pennsylvania, a short, convenient train ride away from the smoke and soot of Pittsburgh's industry. To create the summer colony, an abandoned Pennsylvania Railroad earthen dam was rebuilt and increased in size to create a mountaintop reservoir for pleasure boating, which was named
Lake Conemaugh. Among the Club's members were
Andrew Carnegie,
Henry Clay Frick and
Andrew Mellon. The Club's earthen dam failed on May 31, 1889, contributing to the
Johnstown Flood disaster. Many of the Pittsburgh members of the Club were hastily assembled in an ad hoc meeting and formed "The Pittsburgh Relief Committee." Two decisions were made at that meeting. One was to make immediate, generous and tangible gifts to help the flood relief efforts. The other was a pledge never to speak of the Club or the Flood in public or in private. All litigation was handled by attorneys
Philander Knox and his partner James Hay Reed, of the firm
Knox and Reed (now Reed Smith LLP), both of whom were themselves
South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club members. On July 23, 1892,
Alexander Berkman, a self-proclaimed anarchist, sought to destroy
Henry Clay Frick, the man Berkman blamed for the carnage of the
Homestead steel strike in the preceding weeks. Armed with a pistol and a sharpened rat-tailed file, Berkman gained easy access to the headquarters of Carnegie Steel and found his way into the second floor private office of the chairman, 43-year-old Henry Clay Frick. Berkman forced his way into Frick's private office on the heels of a porter who had taken in his card. As Frick rose, Berkman fired at nearly point-blank range and struck Frick in the left earlobe, the bullet traveling through his neck and lodging into his back. After Frick fell, Berkman fired again and struck Frick in the neck. Leishman was in the office at the time and grabbed Berkman's arm to prevent a third shot. Frick was seriously wounded but rose and tackled Berkman, with the aid of Leishman. Frick was stabbed four times in the leg by Berkman before being subdued by employees. Frick survived. Amid the growing rancor between Frick and Carnegie, Leishman attempted to steer a middle course. This was thwarted when Frick engaged a stratagem to orchestrate the ouster of the man who had saved his life from the presidency of Carnegie Steel, and his removal from the Western Pennsylvanian business scene. Frick alerted Carnegie to Leishman's speculation in the stock market, a practice that Carnegie engaged in freely, but abhorred in his subordinates. Frick worked behind the scenes, with Philander Knox to see that Leishman would be offered the post as ambassador to Switzerland.
Diplomatic at an exhibition in Rome Under pressure from both men, Leishman withdrew from Carnegie service in June 1897, to accept the appointment by President
William McKinley as
United States Ambassador to Switzerland. Thereafter, Leishman became
United States Minister to the Ottoman Empire in 1900 (raised to Ambassador in 1906),
United States Ambassador to Italy in 1909 and
United States Ambassador to Germany in 1911. Years later, as a board member of the
Equitable Life Insurance Company, Frick used a similar scheme to arrange the removal of
James Hazen Hyde (the founder's only son and heir) from the United States to France by seeking an appointment for him to become United States Ambassador to France. Unlike Leishman a decade before, Hyde rebuffed the offer. However, he did go to live in France, where he met and eventually married Leishman's eldest daughter, Marthe. While serving in the
Ottoman Empire, Leishman was instrumental in effecting the safe release of missionary
Miss Ellen Stone as well as bringing about the purchase of the first overseas property to serve as a United States embassy, the
Palazzo Corpi, bought first with his own money, reimbursed after he won a hand of poker. He also distinguished himself for diplomatic tact and dexterity in his negotiations with the Ottomans for full rights for American citizens and schools in that country, and in his pressing with equal success his insistence that the American minister should have access to the Sultan. His office was elevated to the rank of Extraordinary Ambassador and Plenipotentiary in 1906. While serving in Italy, Leishman purchased the much beloved and often reproduced painting called the
Madonna of the Streets. The painting's current whereabouts is not known. ==Personal life==