By Daniel C. Munson

In 1860s New York, Leonard Jerome was a captivating character. He was a prominent money manager, and his 25 % ownership of The New York Times made him influential on important political and economic matters. His sponsorship of the opera and his lavish parties at his mansion and at Delmonico’ s kept him in the society columns as well. His carriages and his four-in-hand were the most elegant in town.

“ He dazzled society,” social chronicler Lloyd Morris wrote, with“ his fantastic speculations, his scandalous love affairs, his incredible parties.” Another such chronicler, Matthew Hale Smith, labeled him“ the leader of fashions.” He was the founder of the American

Jockey Club and built Jerome Park in the Bronx, where the“ sport of kings” really got its start in America. He endowed a college prize to the student“ who best displayed the characteristics of an American gentleman.”

Apart from all this, Leonard Jerome was generous and good-natured and perhaps the most quintessential“ knickerbocker” of his day. One of his Wall Street contemporaries said of him and his investing success, perhaps somewhat ruefully,“ Sometimes it pays to behave like a gentleman.” Today, however, Jerome is remembered, if at all, as Winston Churchill’ s maternal grandfather— a mere footnote in his grandson’ s great biography.

Leonard Jerome was born in 1817, one of nine brothers and a sister living on a farm in Palmyra, New York. The Jerome boys were diligent students, and Leonard’ s

Portrait of Leonard W. Jerome published in The American Turf.

28 FINANCIAL HISTORY | Fall 2025 | www. MoAF. org