The name of Girard is familiar in Philadelphia, being repeated in streets, buildings, and financial and charitable institutions. On Third Street, south from Chestnut Street, is the fine marble building of the Girard Bank, which was copied after the Dublin Exchange. This, originally built for the first Bank of the United States, was Stephen Girard's bank until his death. One of the greatest streets in the northern part of the city is Girard Avenue, over one hundred feet wide, stretching almost from the Delaware River westward far beyond the Schuylkill River, which it crosses upon a splendid iron bridge. In its course through the northwestern section, this fine street diverges around the enclosure of Girard College, occupying grounds covering about forty-two acres. Stephen Girard, before the advent of Astor in New York, amassed the greatest American fortune. He was born in Bordeaux in 1750, and, being a sailor's son, began life as a cabin boy. He first appeared in Philadelphia during the Revolution as a small trader, and after some years was reported, in 1790, to have an estate valued at $30,000. Subsequently, through trading with the West Indies, and availing of the advantages a neutral had in the warlike period that followed, he rapidly amassed wealth, so that by 1812, when he opened his bank, he had a capital of $1,200,000; and so great was the public confidence in his integrity that depositors flocked to his institution. He increased its capital to $4,000,000; and when the war with England began in that year he was able to take, without help, a United States loan of $5,000,000. He was a remarkable man, frugal and even parsimonious, but profuse in his public charities, though strict in exacting every penny due himself. He contributed liberally to the adornment of the city and created many fine buildings. He despised the few relatives he had, and when he died in 1831 his estate, then the largest known in the country, and estimated at $9,000,000, was almost entirely bequeathed for charity.