Oliver Pollock: The New Orleans Merchant Who Paid for the War in the West

In 1792, the National Archives says, the United States paid Oliver Pollock $108,605.02.¹ It was a lot of money, and it came about a decade late. Pollock had spent the war signing his name to paper so that other men could buy powder, boats and flour in the West. When the paper came due, his name was the one on it.

A Philadelphia Merchant in Spanish New Orleans

Pollock was an Irish immigrant, born about 1737, and the sources do not agree on where. Wikipedia names Bready, County Tyrone. 64 Parishes names Coleraine. The Clements Library finding aid says near the parish of Donagheady.²³⁴ He came to Pennsylvania in 1760 and settled near Carlisle. 64 Parishes says he joined the Philadelphia firm of Willing and Morris and that it sent him to Havana in 1762 to sell supplies to the British army.³ There he met Alejandro O'Reilly, a general in Spanish service.

The National Archives says Pollock moved to New Orleans in 1768, in the turmoil of the change from French to Spanish rule. 64 Parishes and the Clements Library say 1769, when O'Reilly came to New Orleans and Pollock followed soon after.¹³⁴ Either way, Pollock got there with flour in a time of hunger, and O'Reilly rewarded him with free trading rights.¹ He built an indigo plantation at Tunica Bend. He also invested in the slave trade, as 64 Parishes plainly says.³

Powder, Willing and Galvez

When the war began, a merchant with Pollock's connections was worth more than a regiment. In September 1776 he helped a Virginia officer, George Gibson, arrange gunpowder shipments from Spain. The Clements Library says Congress appointed him its commercial agent at New Orleans in 1777. 64 Parishes has Congress and then Virginia naming him their agent in 1778.³⁴

In 1778 he found safe harbor for his former business partner James Willing, who had raided British plantations in West Florida. With the permission of the Spanish governor, Bernardo de Galvez, Pollock sold the spoils of Willing's first expedition, 85 enslaved men and women. The sale raised enough money that he refitted a captured British ship for slave raiding.³ Part of the money behind the American cause on the Gulf came from selling people.

Atlas Obscura says Pollock personally convinced Galvez that Washington could win the war, and that he raised troops and supplies for Galvez's campaign against the British forts on the Mississippi. It says that effort drained his own fortune too.⁵ Wikipedia says Pollock borrowed $70,000 from Galvez in 1778. 64 Parishes puts the loan at $74,000 and places it in the years after his money ran short in 1779.²³

Clark's Paymaster

The National Archives says Pollock "almost single-handedly bankrolled" George Rogers Clark's campaign in the Illinois country.¹ The tool was the bill of exchange. Clark's associates drew on Pollock's account, Pollock honored the drafts, and Virginia and Congress were supposed to make him whole. Atlas Obscura adds that Governor Thomas Jefferson publicly backed Pollock, which helped buyers trust the paper.⁵

The trouble was that Clark's men kept drawing. 64 Parishes says they misjudged how much Pollock could cover and overdrew his accounts, and a bill of $237,320 from Clark's Fort Jefferson in January 1782 was the last straw.⁶ Neither Virginia nor Congress paid in time, and Pollock, the National Archives says, became the liable party. Creditors came for him.¹

Jail in Havana and Slow Repayment

He declared bankruptcy in 1782. In 1783 the United States named him its agent in Havana, but his creditors there put him in a debtors' prison for more than a year until Galvez bailed him out. The National Archives says Galvez's certificate of May 1785 gave a figure of $79,087 and praised Pollock's service. Wikipedia and Atlas Obscura put the debt that jailed him at about $150,000, so the numbers do not match.¹²⁵

The sources also differ on how he was repaid. The National Archives has $108,605.02 coming from the federal government in 1792, calls it all he got, and says Jefferson, writing in 1811, could not recall the case. The Clements Library says the government finally compensated him around 1810. 64 Parishes says Virginia paid a first installment in 1785, that full repayment came from the United States in 1811 and from Virginia in 1819, and that "In the end, he was entirely reimbursed by the United States and Virginia." Wikipedia says Congress cleared his war debts in 1791.¹⁴⁷² The record is a patchwork of payments, and no one source gives the whole of it.

He lived out his years in Mississippi with a daughter, near Pinckneyville. The National Archives, the Clements Library and Wikipedia give his death as 1823, and the Clements Library and Wikipedia say December 17. 64 Parishes says 1824.¹⁴²³

Did He Invent the Dollar Sign?

The National Archives words it with care: Pollock is "thought to be the first person to write the dollar symbol ($)."¹ That is a fair way to put it. The claim rests on the oldest example anyone has found, and no surviving page proves nobody wrote it earlier.

Pollock's Life at a Glance

1. 1737 Born in Ireland (Tyrone or Coleraine, depending on the source).
2. 1760 Arrives in Pennsylvania.
3. 1768 or 1769 Settles in New Orleans under Spanish rule.
4. 1777 or 1778 Congress names him its agent at New Orleans, depending on the source.
5. 1778 Finances Clark's Illinois campaign; earliest examples of the dollar sign attributed to his hand.
6. 1782 Declares bankruptcy after Clark's bills come due.
7. 1783 Named agent in Havana, then jailed over debts for more than a year.
8. 1792 National Archives dates a $108,605.02 payment from the United States.
9. 1823 or 1824 Dies near Pinckneyville, Mississippi.

Learn more

• National Archives: Oliver Pollock: a short account with the dollar sign claim and the repayment
• 64 Parishes: Oliver Pollock: the most detailed biography, including his slave-trade investments
• Wikipedia: Dollar sign: the competing theories with their sources
• George Rogers Clark: the campaign Pollock's credit paid for

Notes

1. National Archives, "Oliver Pollock: Supporter of the Revolution, Creator of '$'," The Text Message, on his Philadelphia trade, move to New Orleans, flour and O'Reilly, Clark, the dollar sign, bankruptcy, Havana jail, bail by Galvez, the 1792 payment, Jefferson's letter of 1811 and his death. Read it online. ↩
2. Wikipedia, "Oliver Pollock," on his birthplace, the Galvez loan, the Havana debt, the 1791 clearing of debts and his death date. Used as a lead. Read it online. ↩
3. 64 Parishes, "Oliver Pollock," on his birth, Willing and Morris, Havana, O'Reilly, 1769 arrival, the plantation, slave-trade investments, the powder shipments, the Willing raid, the Galvez loan, Clark's overdrafts and his death in 1824. Read it online. ↩
4. William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan, finding aid for the Oliver Pollock Papers, biographical note, on his birth near Donagheady, Carlisle in 1760, New Orleans in 1769, the 1777 appointment, the Havana jail, repayment around 1810 and death on December 17, 1823. Read it online. ↩
5. Atlas Obscura, "The Bankrupt Irishman Who Created the Dollar Sign by Accident," on Galvez, Jefferson's support, the bills of exchange and the $150,000 debt. Read it online. ↩
6. 64 Parishes, same entry, on Clark's associates overdrawing and the $237,320 bill of January 1782. Read it online. ↩
7. 64 Parishes, same entry, on repayment in 1785, 1811 and 1819 and the full reimbursement. Read it online. ↩
8. Wikipedia, "Dollar sign," on the "ps" theory, Pollock's letters of 1778, West Indies usage in the 1770s, the Pillars of Hercules, the Morris design theory and the discredited US monogram. Read it online. ↩
9. WereHistory, "The Curious Origins of the Dollar Sign," on the April 1, 1778 letter and the doubt over who wrote the sign first. Read it online. ↩