Stephen Girard :
America's richest private banker
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Stephen
Girard was a prosperous Philadelphia shipping merchant, whose caution and
thoroughness was already legend. His involvement with the First Bank of the
United States came more from the necessity to consolidate his now vast
estate, in light of the threats the Napoleonic wars shed on his assets,
which were then tied in ships and cargoes, many of them at stakes in Europe.
In 1807, Girard sent his assistant Mahlon Hutchinson jr to Europe with the
mission to …
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