Oliver Pollock

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Oliver Pollock (1737, Coleraine, Ireland – December 17, 1823, Pinckneyville, Mississippi) was a merchant and financier of the American Revolutionary War, of which he has long been considered a historically undervalued figure. He is often attributed with the creation of the US Dollar sign in 1778.

Pollock sailed to the United States at the age of 23 in 1760 with his father from his native Ireland to Philadelphia. He settled in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. Two years later, he began his career as a merchant, trading from port-to-port with the Spaniards in the West Indies, and was headquartered in Havana, Cuba. It was here that he became close with the Governor-General Alejandro O'Reilly. O'Reilly was later made the Governor of Louisiana by the King of Spain. Pollock began working as a merchant in New Orleans and through his relationship with O'Reilly was in the goodwill of Louisiana officials, granting him free trade within the city. He became the most successful businessman in the city as a result of the scarcity of provisions at the time, bringing in a desperately needed shipment of flour. However instead of taking advantage of the colonists, Pollock sold the flour for half the going price.

By the time of the outbreak of the Revolution, Pollock had become very wealthy and had quite a bit of political influence. Pollock stayed in New Orleans for eight years and also worked as a plantation owner and selling land in Baton Rouge.[1] In 1770 he married Margaret O'Brien from New Orleans, with whom he had eight children before her death in 1799.[2]

In 1777 he was appointed "commercial agent of the United States at New Orleans," making him the representative of the colonies in the city.[3] He used his fortune to finance American operations in the west, and the successful campaign of General George Rogers Clark in Illinois 1778 is due to his contributions. In the same year he borrowed $70,000 from Governor Bernardo de Gálvez, but the financial needs of the country at the time left him in a loss. In 1783 he was appointed an agent by the United Stated in Havana, where he would be imprisoned for his debts a year later, amounting to $150,000. In 1785 he was released on parole and returned to Philadelphia, where he met a sympathetic Robert Morris, another financier of the war who had also incurred debts as a result. Morris however had collected a sum of money to buy Pollock time from his debtors.[4] Both Congress and the state of Virginia had continually refused to clear his debts from the war, until 1791 when congress passed an act discharging them,[5] but in the same year he would return in poverty to Cumberland County. He ran for congress three times, but was not elected, despite garnering the popular vote. In 1800 he again found himself in debt, but within a few years had accumulated property. He remarried in 1805, to Winifred Deady, but they had no children together. He finally retired in 1819 to Mississippi, where he stayed until his death.

The town of Pollock in eastern Grant Parish, Louisiana, is named in his honor.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ James, Alton James (1929) Oliver Pollock, Financier of the Revolution in the West. The Mississippi Valley Historical Review. Pages 67-69.
  2. ^ Oliver Pollock, 1737-1823. Encyclopedia Louisiana. 1998.
  3. ^ Alexander, Elizabeth Urban (October 1, 2004). Notorious Woman. LSU Press. ISBN 0-8071-3024-9. Page 66.
  4. ^ Palmer, Frederick (January 1, 2004). Clark of the Ohio. Kessinger Publishing. ISBN 0-7661-8139-1. Page 453.
  5. ^ Hamilton, Alexander (December 1, 1966). The Papers of Alexander Hamilton. Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-08910-4. Page 36.