July 14th 1798 saw the United States' Consulate open in Edinburgh.
A measure of the growing confidence of the newly-independent United States was the large number of consulates it established during the closing years of the eighteenth century. President John Adams appointed the first U.S. Consul to Scotland on July 14, 1798. The Consul was Harry Grant from South Carolina - an appropriate choice, considering that state's strong Scottish heritage. The first known address for the Consulate was 1 James' Place, adjoining Leith Links -- the street now known as Links Gardens.
The second Consul, Joel Hart of New York, took over in 1818. Almost immediately, he moved to London to work as a physician, returning to America within five years. He held the post of Consul for Leith for sixteen years, as the U.S. State Department was unaware of his departure. Indeed, it seems that his only official act was to appoint a Vice Consul, who was left to conduct the affairs of the Consulate. This first Vice Consul was Robert Grieve, a local ship chandler with premises on the shore of Leith.
The next Consul, John Broadfoot, was also a local man, belonging to a firm of general agents and ship brokers in Leith. Likewise, his successor was a Leith merchant and agent, James McDowall, an American, from Ohio. He was succeeded in 1861 by another American with a Scottish sounding name - Neil McLachlan from Indiana, who signed himself "United States Consul for Leith and its Dependencies".
After fifty-six years in Leith, the U.S. Consulate crossed into Edinburgh in 1854, but it moved back to Leith in 1861. Ten different homes scattered around Leith followed, though the Consulate finally settled in Edinburgh in 1883.
It moved into its present premises on the stately Regent Terrace, pictured below in 1951. Seven consuls appointed since the 1990s -- Bobette Orr, Julie Moyes, Cathy Hurst, Liane Dorsey, Cecile Shea, Lisa Vickers and Dana Linnet, have been women, that run was broken in 2021 when Jack Hillmeyer became Consul General, U.S. Consulate General Edinburgh
Jack arrived in Edinburgh in August that year after serving as Deputy Consul General in Karachi, Pakistan, his record also show he also served in Brussels, Pretoria, Kabul and Milan.
