Benjamin I. Cohen

Benjamin I. Cohen was born in Richmond, Virginia, but spent the bulk of his life in Baltimore, Maryland. His father, Israel I. Cohen, had emigrated from Bavaria to England, and there met and married Judith I. Solomon in 1786. Young Benjamin was raised by his parents with a strong sense of business ethics and civic interest. His father and his uncle, Jacob I. Cohen, had established themselves in business and civic life in Richmond, while climbing the ranks of the Masonic order. Israel died in 1803, when Benjamin was still a small child, and Judith moved with her seven children, including Mendes and Maria, to Baltimore in 1808.

Benjamin followed his older brother Jacob into banking and in 1837 he established the Baltimore Stock Exchange with his brother David. He became very active in the German Society of Maryland, serving as its treasurer for twenty years and as co-chairman of the celebration committee for the Revolution of 1848.

In 1819, Benjamin married Kitty Etting, daughter of Solomon Etting and Rachel Gratz Etting, Baltimore’s other leading Jewish family. They had eleven children before Kitty’s untimely death at age 38. Their son Israel followed in his father’s footsteps—succeeding in finance (he was a founder of the second Baltimore stock exchange) and an active participant in the German Society of Maryland, of which he served as treasurer for more than thirty years.

Benjamin I. Cohen

c. 1835