Haym Salomon

From Grokipedia

Haym Salomon (April 7, 1740 – January 6, 1785) was a Polish-born Jewish immigrant and broker who supported the American Revolution by establishing a financial brokerage in Philadelphia after fleeing British persecution in New York, where he had aided the Patriot cause through intelligence activities. From 1781 to 1784, he worked closely with Robert Morris, the Superintendent of Finance, brokering bills of exchange to convert French and other foreign loans into currency usable by the Continental Army, including critical funds for the Yorktown campaign.

Salomon's documented contributions included selling government notes and bills to raise over $100,000 for army pay in 1782 and providing interest-free personal advances to delegates such as James Madison, though claims of massive direct loans to the government—popularized by his descendants seeking reimbursement—lack primary evidentiary support and appear exaggerated. He earned commissions on his brokerage services but died insolvent, with his family unable to recover alleged unpaid debts from the government, underscoring the financial precarity amid wartime exigencies despite his patriotic efforts.

In brief

Haym Salomon was a Polish-born Jewish immigrant in Philadelphia who knew how to turn paper into pay. During the Revolution he worked with Robert Morris to raise funds, negotiate bills of exchange, and convert French and Dutch loans into money the Continental cause could actually spend.

He was imprisoned by the British, escaped, and went back to the ledgers. The later legends sometimes inflate a broker into a sole savior. The real work is large enough: a Jewish financier in a precarious republic, doing the unglamorous arithmetic of survival.

He died in 1785, owed money by a government that was still learning how to be one.

The accomplishment is solvency at the right hour. A Jewish immigrant helped keep a revolution in business long enough for it to become a country.