JOSEPH NOURSE

America’s First Civil Servant

As first Register of the Treasury, Joseph Nourse was a highly respected and distinguished civil servant. With a career that spanned forty years and six presidential administrations, Nourse played a key role in administering the finances of the new Republic.

Born on July 16, 1754, in London, England, Joseph Nourse was the eldest son of James Nourse (1731-1784) and Sarah Fouace (?-1784). In March 1769, the Nourse family — James, Sarah, their nine children, and two servants — left England on board the Liberty, bound for America. They arrived two months later in Hampton, Virginia, and eventually established Piedmont, their family farm in Berkeley County, Virginia (now West Virginia). After serving as military secretary to General Charles Lee during the American Revolution, Joseph briefly returned to the family farm before settling in Philadelphia in 1779, where he began his civil service career as Assistant Auditor General for the Board of Treasury. Elected as Register in 1781, he was responsible for keeping all the records and accounts of the financial affairs of the new government, as well as authenticating each piece of Continental currency by affixing his signature to it.

Moving with the federal government from Philadelphia to the City of Washington in 1800, Joseph Nourse quickly established himself in the fashionable Georgetown neighborhood. He first purchased a property at 3101 P Street and later acquired Cedar Hill (as Dumbarton House was historically named) in 1804. As Register of the Treasury, he was often invited to many formal occasions at the president's house and the residences of other prominent social and political leaders of the fledgling federal city. In turn, Nourse and his wife, Maria Louisa Bull (1765-1850), whom he married in 1784, entertained many of the same leaders at Cedar Hill, until the family moved from the property in 1813.

With the election of President Andrew Jackson, Joseph Nourse was forced from office in 1829. During his retirement years, he remained an active participant in local and national religious organizations he had long supported, served as an officer for the National Monument Society, maintained his personal and family accounts, and continued to enjoy his role as a devoted husband, father and grandfather. Joseph Nourse died at his Mount St. Alban home in northwest Washington in 1841.