Haym Salomon, Son of Liberty

 

Haym Salomon, Son of Liberty

This is the story of a business man who was a great American patriot. It is also the story of some of the things that lay behind the American Revolution.
It is about a Jew -- Haym Salomon [1740-1785] -- a banker and broker who dies in an unsung battle, that his country might be free.
The American Revolution was waged not only on the field of battle but in the long underground struggle that went on in the commerce marts of Philadelphia. Here is the story of all those men who fought long, silently, and uncomplainingly against the three great enemies of young America, poverty, starvation, and bankruptcy.
For without their contribution of money to pay for the troops, to buy food and guns, even George Washington could not have kept an army in the field. The Revolution lived, in great part, because these men believed in it, because they stood as security for a nation that had no security.
When Haym Salomon escaped from the British in New York and made his way to Philadelphia in 1778, he arrived alone and penniless and friendless. But he came with a dream of what America might be and with an unflagging determination to play his part in the making of a country.
How he built up a fortune out of nothing, how he laid that fortune at the service of the Revolution, and how he helped to rescue the tottering finances of his country is all told here.
It is a story of old New York and old Philadelphia, of a colonial city of thirty thousand souls suddenly thrust into the spotlight as the capital of free America.
Through the pages of the book and the streets of the city march all the colorful characters of the time -- war profiteers, patriots, revolutionists, blockade runners, privateers and pirates, congressmen, army officers, commission men, spies and counter spies, Tories and republicans...
It is a humanized section of history -- a story never before fully told for young people -- which helps to define for them some of the ingredients which went into the making of America.

Haym Salomon, Philadelphia broker

 

Haym Salomon

Philadelphia broker Haym Salomon (1740-1785) played a vital role in ensuring that the American colonies' fight to win independence from the British crown continued. During the 1770s, he brokered a number of large financial transactions that kept American soldiers clothed, fed, and armed. It is thought that this Jewish emigrant contributed much of his own assets to the war for independence because he died deeply in debt.

Haym Salomon was born in 1740 to a family of Portuguese Jews. His parents had been driven out of the Iberian peninsula by anti-Semitic laws enacted by the Spanish monarchy, and settled in Lissa (now Leszno), a part of Poland that, at the time, belonged to the kingdom of Prussia. The Jewish villages in the area, however, were sometimes decimated by vicious pogroms: a crime or incident would occur, Jews in the area came under suspicion for it, and then mob violence resulted in widespread incidents of assault, murder, and property destruction. One such conflagration threatened Lissa when Salomon was a young man, and caused him to flee to Holland.
It was probably during the 1760s that Salomon traveled in Europe. By the time he reached the British colonies he had acquired fluency in several languages. It is also thought that he possessed some university education. Salomon returned to Poland around 1770, but likely became involved in Poland's nationalist movement and was forced to flee the country again in 1772. This was the same year that the first of several partitions of Poland occurred, in which its neighbors allied to seize and divide amongst themselves Polish lands and effectively erase the country from the map. Salomon went first to England, and from there sailed to New York, under British control since the 1660s. It was a thriving port, and the center of commercial and shipping interests in North America. Salomon evidently possessed some knowledge of finance and accounting practices. He was able to find a job as a broker and commission agent for ships plying the Atlantic.

Acts of Sedition

During this time Salomon continued his political activism. He was active in a secret group, the Sons of Liberty, which had been established by men with business interests who were opposed to British rule. The Crown's colonial system ensured that a large part of the profits generated in the New World went to the British Exchequer, not the merchants and other colonial businessmen. Under unknown circumstances, Salomon was arrested by the British and charged with spying in September 1776. His multilingual skills caused his captors to station him with a German general named Heister. At the time, the German state of Hesse allowed its soldiers to serve as mercenaries as a revenue-creating measure. These troops, known as Hessians, were in North America to support British rule. As an interpreter for Heister, Salomon was allowed a relatively high degree of freedom. He contributed to the American revolutionary cause by persuading Hessians to switch sides.
After Salomon was released from custody, he married Rachel Franks, the daughter of a prominent merchant, in January 1777. He continued to work underground to sway Hessian allegiance, and was jailed a second time in August 1778 as one of several suspects thought to be planning a fire that would destroy the British royal fleet in New York harbor. The strategy also included a series of arson fires in British warehouses. He was sent to the Provost, an infamous prison, and a death sentence loomed. However, Salomon had hidden several gold guineas on himself, which were used to bribe a jailer and escape to freedom.

Success in Philadelphia

Salomon left British-occupied New York and crossed into New Jersey and then Pennsylvania. At the time, the city of Philadelphia was the center of the independence movement and home to the Continental Congress, the legislative body of the thirteen colonies that had declared their autonomy from Britain in 1776. Salomon spoke before the Second Continental Congress, offering his services and requesting a position, but was turned down. With some borrowed funds, he opened an office as dealer of bills of exchange. His firm on Front Street, near to the Coffee House where Colonial Army officers and members of the Continental Congress often gathered, began to flourish.
The revolutionary cause, in contrast, was in dire financial straits. The colonies were battling against an extremely wealthy enemy, the British Empire. Keeping the American forces supplied with arms, food, and other supplies, was a daunting task. Salomon came to know many leading figures in Philadelphia during this time, and brokered a loan of $400,000 that gave George Washington, head of the Continental Army, funds to pay his soldiers in 1779. It is thought that Salomon may have contributed his own funds to this aid package.

A Key Figure

Salomon became an associate of prominent Philadelphian Robert Morris, a member of Congress with close ties to Benjamin Franklin. Morris brokered many financial transactions that helped the revolutionary cause gather steam early on. By the winter of 1780-81 the colonial government was broke and Morris was appointed superintendent of finance. Salomon entered into more than seventy-five financial transactions with Morris between 1781 and 1784. He was almost the only broker for the sale of bills of exchange—bonds sold to provide funds for the war effort and salaries of top government officeholders. Salomon may have backed many of these with his own assets. Moreover, he was the principal broker for subsidies from France and Holland to help the American independence effort, and turned over his commissions on these transactions to the cause as well. He was also named an agent for merchandise that was seized by privateers loyal to the colonists, which he sold to help finance the war.
Records show that Salomon advanced in specie over $211,000 to Morris when the latter was superintendent of finance, and entered into other transactions with the government to the tune of over $353,000. There were also several promissory notes totaling $92,000. In all, the sum that Salomon advanced to help the war cause was over $658,000, an amount which was later recognized by Congress as valid. Some of these transactions were in specie or on revolutionary paper, and as such declined considerably in value after the war. The loans that Salomon advanced to men such as future presidents James Madison and James Monroe were assumed to have been settled between the parties.
Salomon maintained his Philadelphia brokerage throughout these years, and was also a devout practitioner of his faith. He was active in the city's Congregation Mikveh Israel, and once appeared before the Board of Censors to speak in opposition to a religious oath required of civil servants designed to keep those of the Jewish faith from such jobs. His firm began to experience financial losses after a 1783 recession, and he planned to relocate to New York City in 1785. According to one story, he petitioned the government for repayment, and was sent a sheaf of documents on a Saturday, the Jewish holy day. Salomon would not sign them because of the Sabbath laws against transacting business. On Monday he fell gravely ill. Other sources note that he had not yet tabulated the debts and presented his claim officially. What is certain is that Salomon died on January 6, 1785 in Philadelphia, a death attributed to tuberculosis.

Services Rendered, then Forgotten

When Salomon died at the age of 45, he was a bankrupt man with a wife, three children under the age of seven, and a fourth on the way. His estate was valued at $44,000, but had liabilities of $45,000. Not long after his death, his chief clerk, who could have been crucial to straightening out financial matters regarding the family debt, committed suicide. Attempts were made by his heirs over the next few years to obtain some retribution, but a series of suspect occurrences thwarted these challenges. It was alleged by the government, for instance, that papers concerning the Salomon estate claims were destroyed when government buildings in the District of Columbia were burned by the British in the War of 1812.
Salomon's fourth child, Haym Jr., met with President John Tyler in the early 1840s and reportedly left a sheaf of documents with him for his perusal. The box of papers later disappeared. The younger Salomon then petitioned the Senate Committee on Revolutionary Claims until 1864, when he was in his late seventies. He even offered to settle the claim at a sum of just $100,000. This was quite generous considering that, with interest, the actual amount owed would have spiraled to a debt of grand proportions. At this the Committee once more approved the claim's legitimacy and submitted it to Congress, which again failed to approve the expenditure.

A Shameful Legacy

At some point after the 1860s, a cache of Salomon papers remaining in Congressional archives was discovered to be missing. Many of them concerned financial dealings and bore the signatures of Washington, Jefferson, and other historic figures. They were likely pilfered for the value of these autographs. In 1893, Salomon's heirs petitioned Congress to strike a commemorative medal in honor of their patriotic forebear, with a Congressional appropriation submitted in the amount of $250, but this was also rejected. Future president Woodrow Wilson sat on a committee charged with the task of founding a university in Salomon's honor in 1911, but the project was derailed by World War I.
Salomon, who is buried in the cemetery of Mikveh Israel, was finally commemorated with a Chicago statue by famed sculptor Lorado Taft, and finished by Leonard Crunelle. The heroic memorial depicts Salomon, Morris, and Washington, and was dedicated in 1941 at the corner of Wacker Drive and Wabash Avenue. Known as the Heald Square Monument, it bears the inscription: "Symbol of American tolerance and unity and of the cooperation of people of all races and creeds in the upbuilding of the United States."

Further Reading

Fast, Howard, Haym Salomon: Son of Liberty, Julian Messner, Inc., 1941.
Hart, Charles Spencer, General Washington's Son of Israel and Other Forgotten Heroes of History, Lippincott, 1937.
Russell, Charles Edward, Haym Salomon and the Revolution, Cosmopolitan Book Corp., 1930.
Schwartz, Laurens B., Jews and the American Revolution: Haym Salomon and Others, McFarland and Co., 1987. □

Haym Salomon

1740 - 1785

US Revolutionary War Financier

Born in Lissa, Prussia-Poland about 1745 and died in Philadelphia, PA in 1785.  He settled in Philadelphia some years before the revolution as a merchant and banker and succeeded in accumulating a large fortune, which he subsequently devoted to the use of the American Government during the War for Independence.  He negotiated all the war subsidies obtained during that struggle from France and Holland, which he endorsed and sold in bills to American merchants at a credit of two and three months on his personal security, receiving for his commission one quarter of a percent. 

He also acted as paymaster general of the French forces in the United States, and for some time lent money to the agents or ministers of several foreign states when their own sources of supply were cut off.  It is asserted that over $100,000 advanced has never been repaid.  To the US Government Mr. Solomon lent about $600,000 in specie, and at his death about $400,000 of this amount had not been repaid.  This was irrespective of what he had lent to statesman and others while in the discharge of public trusts.  His descendants have frequently petitioned for remuneration, and committees of congress have several times favorably reported upon their claims.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia -- Haym Solomon (or Salomon) (1740–1785) w
as a Polish Jew who immigrated to New York during the period of the American Revolution, and who became a prime financier of the American side during the American Revolutionary War against Great Britain. He was born in Leszno (Lissa), Poland, the son of a rabbi, and after leaving Poland, probably in 1772 at the time of Polish partition,[1] immigrated to New York City circa 1775. In New York, he sympathized with the Revolutionary movement, and joined the Sons of Liberty.

During the war, Solomon was twice arrested by the British; in 1776 he was arrested as a spy and served as a German interpreter for the British military's Hessian mercenaries. In 1778 Solomon was sentenced to death, but escaped to Philadelphia,[2] where he acted as a broker for the Office of Finance. Solomon worked extensively with Robert Morris, the Superintendent for Finance for the Thirteen Colonies, and is mentioned nearly seventy-five times in Morris' personal correspondence relating to the financing of the Revolution.[3] Solomon also provided financial services to Continental Congressional delegates James Madison and James Wilson,[4] and during the War became the broker to the French consul, the treasurer of the French Army that aided the Continental Army, and the fiscal agent of the French minister to the United States.[5]

He was also active in Philadelphia's Jewish community and was a member of Congregation Mikveh Israel. He died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at the age of 45.

 Early war years

While in New York, he married Rachael Franks, the daughter of Moses Franks, of a prominent colonial period Jewish family that included loyalist and revolutionary sympathizers.[6] In 1776 he was captured by the British, but he used his knowledge of German to convince his Hessian jailer to let him out. It was during this period of incarceration that he contracted tuberculosis.

After this Solomon left New York, joining with the forces of the Continental Army who were evacuating New York. He traveled south with George Washington's Army and eventually settled in Philadelphia.

 Commercial accomplishments

Solomon was an astute merchant and auctioneer who succeeded in accumulating a fortune, which he subsequently devoted to the use of the American government during the American Revolution. For example, he personally supported various members of the Continental Congress during their stay in Philadelphia, including James Madison. Acting as the patriot he was, he never asked for repayment. Solomon also negotiated the sale of a majority of the war aid from France and Holland, selling bills of exchange to American merchants.

He sold bills of exchange for the French, and those funds went to pay the French military during their stay in Philadelphia. That is why some mistakenly believe he was the paymaster-general of the French forces in the early years of the United States.

Often working out of the "London Coffee House" in Philadelphia, he acted as a broker for the Office of Finance. Solomon sold about $600,000 in Bills of Exchange to his clients, netting about 2.5% per sale. During this period he had to turn to his client in the Office of Finance, Robert Morris, when one sale of over $50,000 nearly sent him to prison. Morris used his position and influence to sue the defrauder and saved Solomon from default and disaster.

 Activity in Jewish community

Solomon was involved in Jewish community affairs, being a member of Congregation Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia, and in 1782, made the largest individual contribution towards the construction of its main building. In 1783, Solomon and other prominent Jews appealed to the Pennsylvania Council of Censors urging them to remove the religious test oath required for office-holding under the State Constitution. In 1784, he answered anti-Semitic slander in the press by stating: "I am a Jew; it is my own nation; I do not despair that we shall obtain every other privilege that we aspire to enjoy along with our fellow-citizens."

 Death and debts

Marker at Mikveh Israel Cemetery in Philadelphia.

After a solid career in Philadelphia, he saw opportunity in a different state. Former client Robert Morris tried to help him establish himself in New York. He died shortly after he had decided to move back to city and become an auctioneer there.
His obituary in the Independent Gazetteer read, "Thursday, last, expired, after a lingering illness, Mr. Haym Solomon, an eminent broker of this city, was a native of Poland, and of the Hebrew nation. He was remarkable for his skill and integrity in his profession, and for his generous and humane deportment. His remains were yesterday deposited in the burial ground of the synagogue of this city."
The gravesite of Haym Solomon is at Mikveh Israel Cemetery, located on the 800-block of Spruce Street, in Philadelphia. It is unmarked, but he has two plaque memorials there. The east wall has a marble tablet that was installed by his great-grandson, William Solomon, and a granite memorial is set inside the gate of the cemetery. In 1980, the Haym Salomon Lodge #663 of the fraternal organization B'rith Sholom sponsored a memorial in Mikvah Israel Cemetery on the north side of Spruce st. between 8th and 9th Sts. in Philadelphia. A large, engraved memorial marker of Barre Granite just inside the cemetery gates was placed, inscribed, "An American Patriot".
When Solomon died, it was discovered he had been speculating in various currencies and debt instruments. His family sold them at market rates, which had greatly depreciated because of the weakened state of the American economy in the 1780s. Subsequent generations misunderstood his truly patriotic actions and appealed to Congress for more money, but were turned down twice. A myth grew up that he had lent the young United States government about $600,000, and at his death about $400,000 of this amount had not been repaid. This sum was added to what he really had lent to statesmen and others while performing public duties and trusts. Jacob Rader Marcus  wrote in Early American Jewry that the sum owed to Solomon was $800,000. That amount in 1785 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $39,264,947,368.42 (using relative share of GDP which indicates purchasing power) in 2005 US dollars.^[8]

 Myths and historical legends

Commemorative marker at Mikveh Israel Cemetery

It is said that during the American Revolution, Solomon went to France and raised an additional £3.5 million from the Sassoon and Rothschild banking houses and families. However, David Sassoon had not been born yet, and would later start up his counting house in Bombay, India, not France. Likewise, the Rothschild family had not set up a bank in France yet either. At the time of the Revolutionary war, the Rothschild's patriarch, Mayer Amschel Rothschild, founder of the banking dynasty, was still in Hesse-Kassel (Hesse-Cassel), loyally serving its prince, Wilhelm IX, who aided the British against the Americans by supplying England with his Hessian mercenaries.
Solomon spoke eight languages. Supposedly, when he was in France, he passed himself off as a French diplomat. Unfortunately, it does not conform to the known facts. It is true his co-religionist, David Franks, did help Adams negotiate loans from Holland. However, there is nothing in the record to show that Solomon himself went to Europe for this purpose.
Solomon is sometimes alleged to have written the first draft of the United States Constitution  but the Philadelphia Convention occurred after his death. Others have claimed that he designed The Great Seal of the United States and that he included the Star of David, a Jewish symbol, above the eagle's head. There is no documentary evidence to support this claim.
It is often said that Solomon lent hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Revolutionary government, which never repaid him. In fact, the money merely passed through his bank accounts.^[9]

 Honors, testimonials and memorials

1975 United States postage stamp featuring Haym Salomon.

In 1893, a bill was presented before the 52nd United States Congress ordering a gold medal be struck in recognition of Solomon's contributions to the United States. In 1941, the writer Howard Fast wrote a book Haym Salomon, Son of Liberty. In 1941, the George Washington-Robert Morris-Haym Solomon Memorial was erected along Wacker Drive in downtown Chicago. In 1975 the United States Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp honoring Haym Saloman for his contributions to the cause of the American Revolution. This stamp, like others in the "Contributors to the Cause" series, was printed on the front and the back. On the glue side of the stamp, the following words were printed in pale, green ink:

"Financial Hero—Businessman and broker Haym Solomon was responsible for raising most of the money needed to finance the American Revolution and later to save the new nation from collapse."

The Congressional Record of March 25, 1975 reads, "When Morris was appointed Superintendent of Finance, he turned to Solomon for help in raising the money needed to carry on the war and later to save the emerging nation from financial collapse. Solomon advanced direct loans to the government and also gave generously of his own resources to pay the salaries of government officials and army officers. With frequent entries of 'I sent for Haym Solomon,' Morris' diary for the years 1781–84 records some 75 transactions between the two men."
I
n 1939, Warner Brothers released Sons of Liberty, a short film starring Claude Rains as Solomon. Hollywood film producer John C. W. Shoop, under direction of MorningStar Pictures, is currently in production of a story of the life and times of Haym Salomon called On The Money.

In World War II the United States liberty ship SS Haym Solomon was named in his honor.

 Footnotes

1. ^ Milgram, Shirley. ""Mikveh Israel Cemetery."". USHistory.org. Retrieved on 2008-06-26.
2. ^ "[ttp://www.nps.gov/revwar/about_the_revolution/haym_salomom.html Haym Solomon]". National Park Service, US Department of the Interior. Retrieved on 2008-06-26.
3. ^ Wiernik, Peter. History of the Jews in America. New York: The Jewish Press Publishing Company, 1912. p. 96.
4. ^ Wiernik, Peter. History of the Jews in America. New York: The Jewish Press Publishing Company, 1912. p. 95.
5. ^ Wiernik, Peter. History of the Jews in America. New York: The Jewish Press Publishing Company, 1912. p. 95.
6. ^ Peters, p. 12
7. ^ On June 17, 1980 the Philadelphia public was advised of the fact in the Philadelphia Morning Inquirer, complete with a background story and photograph of the event.
8. ^ [1] [Used 1790 - 2005 as the calculator only goes to 1790...]
9. ^ Can History be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past, by Roy Ronsezweig, in The Journal of American History Volume 93, Number 1 (June, 2006): 117-46. The sentence is between note 30 and 31 (free available HTML version of the article doesn't report original article page numbers).

 References

• Amler, Jane Frances. Haym Solomon: Patriot Banker of the American Revolution. ISBN 0-8239-6629-1
• Hart, Charles Spencer. General Washington's Son of Israel and Other Forgotten Heroes of History. ISBN 0-8369-1296-9.
• Peters, Madison C. Haym Solomon. The Financier of the Revolution. New York: The Trow Press, 1911.
• Russell, Charles Edward. Haym Solomon and the Revolution. ISBN 0-7812-5827-8.
• Schwartz, Laurens R. Jews and the American Revolution: Haym Solomon and Others (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., 1987).
• Wiernik, Peter. History of the Jews in America. New York: The Jewish Press Publishing Company, 1912.

 External links

Philadelphia portal

• Feldberg, Michael. "Haym Solomon: The Rest of the Story" Jewish World Review, 2001.[3]
• Blythe, Bob. "Haym Solomon." National Park Service, United States Department of the Interior. 2003. [4]
• "HAYM SOLOMON MONUMENT. Jew Who Helped Finance Revolution to be Commemorated." The New York Times, July 26, 1910.[5]
• Haym Solomon Monument information, Queens, New York.[6]
• Currency and Finance in the 18th Century : Bills of Exchange
• Son of Liberty & 1973 Medal
• Sons of the American Revolution
• Haym Solomon Website