Haym Solomon, financier of the American Revolution
Haym Solomon (or Salomon) (April 7, 1740 – January 6, 1785) was a Spanish and Portuguese Jew who immigrated to New York from Poland during the period of the American Revolution and who became a prime financier of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War against Great Britain.
Early Years
Solomon was born in Leszno, Poland, and descended from Jewish refugees from Portugal.
He studied Hebrew and had a basic education but did not know how to write in Yiddish. In the 18th century, he journeyed throughout Western Europe, during which time he acquired a knowledge of finance and fluency in several languages.
He returned to Poland in 1770 but left during the Partition of Poland two years later. After traveling to England, Solomon immigrated to New York City in 1775, establishing himself as a financial broker for merchants engaged in overseas trade.
When he first came to the colonies, he became great friends with Alexander MacDougall.
Revolutionary activity
Sympathizing with the Patriot cause, Solomon joined the New York branch of the Sons of Liberty.
In September 1776, he was arrested as a spy. Still, the British pardoned him only after serving 18 months of his sentence and claims of torture on a British boat to use his abilities as an interpreter for their Hessian mercenaries.
Solomon used his position to help prisoners of the British escape and encouraged the Hessians to desert the war effort. In 1778, Solomon was arrested again and sentenced to death, but he managed to escape, whereupon he made his way with his family to the rebel capital in Philadelphia.
Once resettled, Solomon resumed his activities as a broker.
He became the agent to the French consul and the paymaster for the French forces in North America.
In 1781, he began working extensively with Robert Morris, the newly appointed Superintendent for Finance for the Thirteen Colonies.
Often working out of the “London Coffee House” in Philadelphia, Solomon sold his clients about $600,000 in Bills of Exchange, netting about 2.5% per sale.
During this period, he had to turn to Morris for help when one sale of over $50,000 nearly sent him to prison.
Morris used his position and influence to sue the defrauder and save Solomon from default and disaster.
In August 1781, the Continental Army had trapped Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis in the little Virginia coastal town of Yorktown.
George Washington and the main army and Count de Rochambeau, with his French army, decided to march from the Hudson Highlands to Yorktown and deliver the final blow.
But Washington’s war chest was empty, as was that of Congress.
Washington determined that he needed at least $20,000 to finance the campaign.
When Morris told him no funds or credit were available, Washington gave him a simple but eloquent order: “Send for Haym Solomon.”
Haym again came through, and the $20,000 was raised. Washington conducted the Yorktown campaign, which proved to be the Revolution’s final battle, thanks to Haym Solomon.
Solomon negotiated the sale of most of the war aid from France and Holland, selling bills of exchange to American merchants.
Solomon also personally supported various members of the Continental Congress, including James Madison and James Wilson, during their stay in Philadelphia.
Acting as the patriot he was, he requested below-market interest rates and never asked for repayment.
The Treaty of Paris, signed on September 3, 1783, ended the Revolutionary War but not the newly established nation’s financial problems.
Haym Solomon managed, time after time, to raise the money to bail out the debt-ridden government.
Personal life
In July 1777, Solomon married Rachael Franks, the daughter of Moses Franks, a prominent colonial-period Jewish family that included loyalist and revolutionary sympathizers.
Their first child, a boy named Ezekiel, was born in New York in the summer of 1778; later, in Philadelphia, they had two daughters, Sarah and Deborah.
Rachael Solomon gave birth to her fourth child three months after her husband’s death and named the baby Haym M. Solomon.
Activity in the 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 constructing its main building.
In 1783, Solomon was among the prominent Jews involved in the successful effort to have the Pennsylvania Council of Censors 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 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
Haym Solomon marker, Move Israel Cemetery, Philadelphia.
After a solid career in Philadelphia, he saw an opportunity in a different state.
Former client Robert Morris tried to help him establish himself in New York but died shortly after he had decided to move back to the city and become an auctioneer there.
His obituary in the Independent Gazetteer read, “Thursday, last, expired, after a lingering illness, Mr.
Haym Salomon, an eminent broker of this city, was a native of Poland and 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 Salomon Mikveh Israel Cemetery is located in the 800 block of Spruce Street in Philadelphia.
Though unmarked, there are two plaque memorials.
The east wall has a marble tablet installed by his great-grandson, William Salomon, and a granite memorial is set inside the cemetery. Shalom sponsored a memorial in the Mikveh Israel Cemetery on the north side of Spruce Street between 8th and 9th Streets in Philadelphia.
A blue ribbon panel and committee, including Robert S. Whitman, Sidney Bruskin, and Marvin Abrams, all lodge past presidents, arranged for the renovation of the cemetery’s walls and walkways.
They then arranged for and oversaw the installation of a large, engraved memorial marker of Barre Granite just inside the cemetery gates, 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 they were turned down twice.
A myth grew that he had lent the young United States government about $600,000; at his death, about $400,000 of this amount had not been repaid.
This sum was added to what he had actually 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 today’s purchasing power to about $40 billion (using the relative share of GDP, which indicated purchasing power) in 2005 US dollars.
Myths and historical legends
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 was not born yet and would later start his counting house in Bombay, India, not France.
Likewise, the Rothschild family had not yet set up a bank in France.
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 price, Wilhelm IX, who aided the British against the Americans by supplying Britain with his Hessian mercenaries.
Solomon spoke eight languages. Supposedly, he passed himself off as a French diplomat when he was in France.
Unfortunately, this does not conform to known facts. It is true that his co-religionist, David Franks, did help Adams negotiate loans from Holland.
However, nothing in the record shows that 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 included the Star of David, a Jewish symbol, above the eagle’s head.
There is no documentary evidence to support this claim.
Honors, testimonial,s and memorials:
Haym Solomon stamp
1975 United States postage stamp featuring Haym Solomon.
In 1893, a bill was presented before the 52nd United States Congress ordering the striking of a gold medal in recognition of Solomon’s contribution to the United States.
In 1941, the writer Howard Fast wrote a book, Haym Solomon, Son of Liberty. That same year, the George Washington-Robert Morris-Haym Solomon Memorial by Leorando Traft was erected along Wacker Drive in downtown Chicago.
In 1946, a memorial statue was erected to Solomon at Hollenbeck Park in Los Angeles.
The statue was rededicated in 2008 at Pan-Pacific Park in the Fairfax District, where it is located on the corner of Gardner and Third Street.
In 1975, the United States Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp honoring Haym Soloman for his contributions to the cause of the American Revolution.
Like others in the “Contributors to the Cause” series, this stamp was printed on both 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 raising the money needed to continue the war and later save the emerging nation from financial collapse.
Solomon advanced direct loans to the government and also generously contributed 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.
In 1939, Warner Brothers released Sons of Liberty, a short film starring Claude Rains as Solomon.
In World War 2, the United States liberty ship SS Haym Salomon was named in his honor.
The Haym Solomon Nursing Home in Brooklyn, NY, is named in his honor.