Judith Solomon Cohen

Judith Solomon was born in Bristol, England in 1766. In 1786, when she was just 20, she married Israel I. Cohen, a native of Obersdorff, in Bavaria, and the following year they set sail for the United States. They soon settled in Richmond, Virginia, where their ten children (nine sons and one daughter) were born. Israel’s brother Jacob, already established at Richmond, had arrived in the United States during the Revolutionary War and had already explored much of the available terrain for mercantile opportunities, first in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which had attracted a coterie of German Jews, and then in Charleston, South Carolina, where he and other Jewish soldiers had joined the Patriot cause and fought with Lushington’s brigade, finally arriving in Virginia after the end of the war.

In Richmond, the Cohen brothers achieved great financial success and actively engaged in civic affairs. Both served as grandjurymen, and Jacob was a city council member and trustee of the local Masonic hall, while Israel served as a volunteer constable. However, Israel died in 1803, leaving Judith to care for their eight surviving children on her own.

In 1808, Judith Solomon Cohen took the bold step of moving her brood from Richmond to Baltimore. This momentous decision was to have important consequences for the development of the city as well as for the fortunes of the Cohen family. The Cohen sons soon became involved in finance in their new home. Their first business venture was a lottery, which was so successful that it resulted in a branch office in Philadelphia. Eventually, the lottery business evolved into a banking firm under the leadership of Judith’s eldest surviving son, Jacob, who would serve as director of the B&O Railroad. Jacob I. Cohen & Brothers was among the most reliable financial institutions in the nation and proved its value during the Panic of 1837 when it was one of the few firms that actually paid its depositors. That same year, younger sons Benjamin and David became instrumental in the founding of the Baltimore Stock Exchange. Not to be outdone by the success of his older brothers, Judith’s youngest surviving son, Joshua, became an eminent doctor. Another son, Mendes I. Cohen, would quit finance and travel the world for six years, writing his mother letters from the distant shores of Europe and the Middle East.

Judith Solomon Cohen

c. 1830–1835