Daughter of Israel and Judith Solomon Cohen, Maria I. Cohen was born into a family that was—and would continue to be—prominent in the financial and cultural life of Baltimore. Her father had been born in Bavaria, her mother in England. There the couple met and married before settling sail for America and settling in Richmond. Maria, like all her siblings but following Israel’s death in 1803, Judith moved the family to Baltimore. Her brother Benjamin would become one of the most prominent bankers and philanthropists in the city, and another brother, Mendes, would become an international adventurer. Maria died at twenty-six, never having married.