Adolphus Simeon Solomons

Adolphus Simeon Solomons (October 26, 1826 – March 18, 1910) was a Jewish-American philanthropist. Life Solomons was born on October 26, 1826, in New York City, New York, the son of John Solomons and Julia Levy. His father was an English immigrant who conducted the New York Courier and Enquirer with James Watson Webb. Solomons studied at the University of the City of New York. He initially worked for a firm of wholesale importers of stationary and fancy goods. Within two years, he became its head bookkeeper and confidential man. When he was fourteen, he enlisted in the New York National Guard and became a color-guide for the Third Regiment Washington Greys.He was promoted to sergeant five years later, and was discharged from service in 1847. In 1851, Secretary of State Daniel Webster appointed him "Special Bearer of Dispatches to Berlin." While working abroad, he visited a Jewish ward in a Frankfurt hospital and became inspired to establish a similar institution in New York. After returning home he became a member of a committee that arranged a ball in Niblo's Garden which raised funds that went to what would become Mt. Sinai Hospital. In 1859, Solomons moved to Washington, D.C., and established the printing house Philip and Solomons, which held contracts for government printing for many years. In 1871, when the capital had its own government, he became chairman of ways and means committee of the District of Columbia House of Representatives. President Ulysses S. Grant offered to appoint him governor of the District in 1871, but he declined the offer. A leading member of the local Jewish community, he took an active part in every inauguration ceremony between Abraham Lincoln and William Howard Taft. The last portrait ever taken of Lincoln was taken in his shop.