Jeremiah Hamilton

Jeremiah G. Hamilton (sometimes Jerry Hamilton; died May 19, 1875) was a Wall Street broker noted as "the only black millionaire in New York" by James McCune Smith about a decade before the American Civil War.

Career Hamilton was a shrewd financial agent, amassing a fortune of $2 million ($250,000,000 in 2018 dollars) by the time of his death in 1875. Although he was the subject of much newspaper coverage and his life provides a unique perspective on race in 19th century America, Hamilton is virtually absent from modern historical literature.

Hamilton first came to prominence in 1828 after hiding out in a fishing boat for multiple days in the Port-au-Prince harbor in Haiti and eventually escaping the Haitian authorities. They had discovered he was transporting counterfeit coins to Haiti reportedly for a group of New York merchants; in absentia he was sentenced to be shot.

Almost a decade later, after the 1835 Great Fire of New York destroyed most of the buildings on the southeast tip of Manhattan, Hamilton accrued about $5 million in 2013 dollars by "taking pitiless advantage of several of the fire victims' misfortunes". Eliza Hamilton was white which made her marriage to Jeremiah taboo for the time.

Legacy The 2015 biography "Prince of Darkness" by Shane White chronicles the life of Jeremiah G. Hamilton. This book is being used as the basis for an HBO Max mini series by actor producer Don Cheadle. Hamilton is featured in the documentary series Profiles of African-American Success. February 28, 2019, U.S. Representative Jerrold Nadler entered the life of Jeremiah G. Hamilton into the Congressional Record as an Extension of Remarks.