Girard, STEPHEN

Girard, STEPHEN, miser and philanthropist, was born near Bordeaux, 24th May 1750, and was successively cabin-boy, mate, captain, and part owner of an American coasting-vessel. In 1769 he settled as a trader in Philadelphia, where ultimately he established a bank which became the mainstay of the United States government during the war of 1812-14, and advanced several millions to the treasury. He died 26th December 1831, leaving a large fortune to charities. Girard was a man of few friends, crabbed and unapproachable, in religion a sceptic, in personal habits a miser, as a master exacting and hard, as a debtor not unwilling to escape payment where a legal technicality enabled him to avoid a just claim. Yet in the yellow fever epidemic in 1793 he nursed many of the sick in the hospitals; and in public matters his generosity was remarkable. Among other bequests he left $2,000,000 for the erection and maintenance in Philadelphia of a college for male white orphans; no minister of any sect whatever was to be on its board, or even to enter the premises as a visitor. The principal building (1833-47), a magnificent Greek temple, and the nine subsidiary buildings, have accommodation for 1580 pupils.