Salomon, Haym (redirected from Haym Solomon)

Salomon, Haym (hīm), 1740–85, American Revolutionary financier, b. Lissa (now Leszno), Poland. A Jewish emigrant from Poland, he was imprisoned (1778) by the British in New York City for aiding the Revolutionaries and was condemned to death, but he escaped to Philadelphia. There he started a successful brokerage business. He aided Robert Morris in obtaining loans from France and pledged his own fortune to the new government to maintain its credit. Salomon was never recompensed and he died impoverished.

Bibliography

See biographies by C. E. Russell (1930) and H. M. Fast (1941).

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Salomon, Haym

(born 1740, Lissa, Pol.—died Jan. 6, 1785, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S.) American patriot and financier. Forced to flee Poland for his revolutionary activities, he arrived in New York in 1772 and soon became a successful merchant and financier. A supporter of the patriot cause in the American Revolution, he was arrested and imprisoned by the British. In 1778 he escaped to Philadelphia, where he opened a brokerage office. He made loans in excess of $600,000 to help finance the new government, extended interest-free private loans to James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, and others, and obtained French loans to the American government.

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Salomon, Haym (?1740–85) Revolutionary patriot, banker; born in Leszno, Poland. University educated, he supported Polish independence and had to flee, ending up in New York City in 1772 where he began a dry-goods business. With the American Revolution, he undertook to supply the Continental troops; he was twice arrested by the British as a spy but he escaped to Philadelphia in 1778. There he aided Robert Morris by brokering government bonds, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars through loans of his own and others' money. He lost heavily in the post-Revolutionary recession. He also worked to secure equal treatment for his fellow Jews.