Haym Salomon

Haym Salomon
Haym Salomon, financier of the American Revolution
Born	April 7, 1740 Leszno, Poland
Died	January 6, 1785(1785-01-06) (aged 44) Philadelphia, U.S.
Resting place	Mikveh Israel Cemetery, Philadelphia
Occupation	Broker
Known for	Prime financier during the American Revolutionary War.

Haym Salomon (also Solomon; April 7, 1740 – January 6, 1785) was a Polish-born American Jewish businessman and political financial broker who immigrated to New York City from Poland during the period of the American Revolution. He helped convert the French loans into ready cash by selling bills of exchange for Robert Morris, the Superintendent of Finance. In this way he aided the Continental Army and was possibly, along with Morris, the prime financier of the American side during the American Revolutionary War against Great Britain.

Haym Salomon (anglicized from Chaim Salomon) was born in Leszno (Lissa), Poland in 1740 to a Sephardic Jewish family descended from Spanish and Portuguese Jews who migrated to the Jewish communities of Poland as a result of the Spanish Inquisition of 1492 and remained there for many generations. Although most Jews in Central and Eastern Europe spoke Yiddish (Judeo-German), some have claimed that because Salomon left Poland while still young, he could not read and write Yiddish. In his youth, he studied Hebrew. During his travels in western Europe, he acquired a knowledge of finance and fluency in several other languages, such as German. He returned to Poland in 1770 but left for England two years later in the wake of the Polish partition. In 1775, he immigrated to New York City, where he established himself as a financial broker for merchants engaged in overseas trade.