Stephen Girard - Death and Will

Death and Will

On December 22, 1830, Stephen Girard was seriously injured while crossing the street near Second and Market Streets in Philadelphia. He was knocked down by a horse and wagon, whose wheel actually ran over the left side of his face, lacerating his cheek and ear, as well as damaging his good (left) eye. Despite his age (81), he got up unassisted and returned to his nearby home, where a doctor dressed his wound. He threw himself back into his banking business, although he remained out of sight for two months. Nevertheless, he never fully recovered and he died on December 26, 1831, coincidentally the Feast of St. Etienne--St. Stephen's Day in the Western Church. He was buried in the vault he built for his nephew in the Holy Trinity Catholic cemetery, then at Sixth and Spruce Streets. Twenty years later, his remains were reinterred in the Founder's Hall vestibule at Girard College behind a statue by Nicholas Gevelot, a French sculptor living in Philadelphia.

At the time of his death, Girard was the wealthiest man in America and he bequeathed nearly his entire fortune to charitable and municipal institutions of Philadelphia and New Orleans, including an endowment for establishing a boarding school for "poor, white, male" orphans in Philadelphia, primarily those who were the children of coal miners, which opened as the Girard College in 1848. Girard's will was contested by his family in France, however, but was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in a landmark case, Vidal et al. vs Girard's Executors, 43 U.S. 127 (1844). Michael Klepper and Robert Gunther, in their book The Wealthy 100, posit that, with adjustment for inflation, Girard was the fourth-wealthiest American of all time, behind John D. Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt and John Jacob Astor.

Girard Avenue, a major east-west thoroughfare of North Philadelphia and West Philadelphia and the location of Girard College, is named for him, as is the borough of Girardville, Schuylkill County, located roughly 110 miles northwest of Philadelphia, which is bordered by many acres of land still connected to the Girard Estate.