A SKETCH OF HAYM SALOMON.
From an Unpublished MS. in the Papers of Jared Sparks.
[Contributed by Herbert B. Adams, Ph. D., Professor in the Johns Hopkins University. With Notes by J. H. Hollander.]
In the fall of 1841, Jared Sparks, while professor of history in Harvard College, was delivering a course of lyceum lectures in New York City upon the American Revolution. His remarks upon the services of certain public men of the period excited deep interest in the mind of a Jewish hearer, Mr. Haym M. Salomon, who wrote to and afterwards called upon Mr. Sparks in reference to the patriotic activity of Haym Salomon, a contemporary and associate of Robert Morris, James Madison, Edmund Randolph and other distinguished publicists of the Revolutionary period. At the request of Mr. Sparks, Mr. Salomon prepared certain memoranda of the eminent services of his father, Haym Salomon, and this manuscript passed into the possession of Mr. Sparks.
The interview and the information thus obtained seem to have made a profound impression upon Mr. Sparks. He mentioned something of the above matter to Mr. Joshua I. Cohen, of Baltimore, and almost a quarter of a century after the original interview, under date of October 29, 1865, Mr. Cohen wrote to Mr. Sparks as follows:
"You may probably recollect a conversation I had with you many years ago during a visit to Cambridge, in which I mentioned that Judge Noah, of New York, was then engaged in gathering together the facts and memorials of the part which our people, the Israelites, took in our Revolutionary struggle, and you kindly offered to him through me the use of your biographical series for any memoirs he might prepare on the subject. The death of Judge Noah, not long after, put an end to the project. I mentioned to you a military company that was formed in Charleston, S. C., composed almost exclusively of Israelites, of which my uncle was a member, and which behaved well during the war. Major Frank, one of Arnold's aids, was spoken of, and also Haym Salomon and others. In connection with Mr. Salomon you expressed yourself very fully, and, in substance (if I recollect correctly), that his association with Robert Morris was very close and intimate, and that a great part of the success that Mr. Morris attained in his financial schemes was due to the skill and ability of Haym Salomon. I do not pretend to quote your language, but only the idea. The matter was brought up to my mind recently by the marriage of a great-grandson of Mr. Salomon to a niece of mine, one of the young ladies of our household."[4]
The original sketch of Haym Salomon thus prepared by his son was found in a somewhat mutilated condition by Professor Herbert B. Adams, of the Johns Hopkins University, among the Sparks Papers, which had been entrusted to his care during the preparation of "The Life and Writings of Jared Sparks," published in 1893 by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. The manuscript was stitched to other papers and had been apparently cut down somewhat in order to make it more uniform in size with the smaller sheets. This fact will explain certain tantalizing, but apparently brief omissions in the text. The appended copy of the manuscript is furnished by Professor Adams with the full consent of the Sparks family.