Robert Morris

Robert Morris (1734-1806), American financier, born in Liverpool. Morris went to America in 1747 and soon attained a prominent position in American commerce. He became politically active in the period before the American Revolution. As a member of the Continental Congress from 1776 to 1778, he signed the Declaration of Independence. From 1781 to 1784 Morris supervised the finances of the war, a task he fulfilled largely on the basis of his personal credit. In 1781 he established, in Philadelphia, the Bank of North America, the oldest financial institution in the United States. He was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and served (1789-95) in the U.S. Senate. Having lost his money in land speculation, Morris spent three years in a debtors prison, and he died in comparative penury in Philadelphia.