Why is Stephen Girard, a figure from late Colonial America, important today? As a teenager, he left home in Bordeaux, France with meager funds and went to sea as a merchant marine, following his familys tradition. In early summer, 1776, he landed in Philadelphia when a British blockade forced his ship into the citys Delaware River port. With his extraordinary intelligence and with an ability to foresee market trends and grasp the mysteries of international trade, he remained in Philadelphia and became an American citizen. By the early eighteen hundreds he had become the richest man in...