Jeremiah G. Hamilton was considered the wealthiest African American of the 19th century and Wall Street’s first Black millionaire, according to Haiti.org.
Born in Haiti in 1807, he fled the country with his family under the threat of capture and execution.

In 1833, Hamilton established himself as a businessman in New York. He was one of the first to create a hedge fund, which uses a pool of money from investors to leverage aggressive positions in the stock market, according to Haiti.org.

Profiting from insurance scams that allegedly sunk boats to collect big payouts, Hamilton took advantage of a real estate boom in New York.

He dealt extensively in the white business world and invested in land and property around the Hudson River. He also owned railroad stock with trains he was not legally allowed to ride, according to Haiti.org.

Hamilton once went bankrupt but quickly earned it back following the city’s Great Fire of 1845. He used his savvy to buy low and sell high after the fire devastated property values.

Through his investments, Hamilton amassed approximately $2 million (which would be worth more than $40 million today). He purchased a rural New Jersey mansion, married, and had children with a white woman, according to Haiti.org.

He was also known for being rebellious and outsmarting those who launched racial attacks or tried to stifle his business operations. In 1850, Hamilton launched a lawsuit against Cornelius Vanderbilt's Accessory Transit Company, one of the country's richest firms and family operated businesses.

Vanderbilt's obituary referred to Hamilton as the "only man who ever fought the Commodore,” according to Haiti.org.

Moreover, he survived and escaped numerous lynching attempts. The family's luxury residence on New York City's East 29th Street was raided by an Irish mob that wanted to lynch him during the deadly week of the draft riots of 1863.

Hamilton escaped, climbed over a fence and just made it via a back door. The 270-acre rural estate in New Jersey had a 10-bedroom house, ballroom, terrace, two trout streams, a fishpond, and quail, according to Black Past.

Hamilton reportedly died in 1875 after a battle with pneumonia.