To many of his contemporaries in early 19th Century Philadelphia, Stephen Girard was an old codger in an unfashionable full-skirted coat and pigtail who frequently jostled his way to High Street Market to sell baskets of eggs and vegetables from his farm in Passyunk Township, three miles southwest of the city. Solid burghers, however, recognized him as the man who paid one-tenth of Philadelphia's real estate taxes, who had in 1814 subscribed to 95% of the U. S. Government's unpopular $5,000,000 war loan. Clergymen were painfully aware that he read the French...
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