GIRARD', STEPHEN ( 1750-1831 ) . An Ameri can merchant and philanthropist. He was born at Bordeaux, France, the son of a sea captain; became a sailor in 1763, and at the age of nine teen was captain and part owner of a ship en gaged in the West Indian and American coasting trade. In 1769 he settled in Philadelphia, but continued in the coasting trade until stopped by the outbreak of the Revolutionary War. Es pousing the cause of the Colonies, he remained in America, dealt in a small way in army sup plies, and in 1780 again embarked in the West Indian trade, this time on a more extensive scale, and in a few years, by a succession of lucky ventures, had accumulated a considerable fortune. In 1810 he became largely interested in the first United States Bank, and in 1812, upon the lapsing of its charter, he purchased a greater part of its stock, and its building. He retained the old officers, only renaming it Gi rard's Bank, succeeded to much of the old bank's business, and made it one of the soundest and most successful financial institutions in America. During the War of 1812 he was the chief finan cial support of the Government, advancing it large sums to enable it to continue military oper ations, and in 1814 took up practically an entire loan of $5,000,000, after subscribers had been sought in vain. On the rechartering of the second
United States Bank in 1816, he became one of its principal stockholders and a director, and exercised a dominant control over its policy for many years. Upon his death he left almost his entire fortune of $9,000,000 to public benefac tions, chief of which was Girard College (q.v.), in the regulations for the control and manage ment of which he incorporated his ideas as to freedom of thought and religious belief. Girard's personality was forbidding, and his personal appearance most unattractive. Penurious and almost miserly in small affairs, a close and shrewd business man, and a hard taskmaster, he was, nevertheless, generous and open-handed in his benefactions even during his life, and self sacrificing and public-spirited to a degree, as his personal services to the people of Philadelphia, when that city was ravaged by a yellow-fever epidemic in 1793, showed. Consult: Simpson, Life of Stephen Girard (Philadelphia, 1832) ; and Arey, Girard College and Its Founder (ib., 1860).