Working Class History Test

[Brad De Long]

>A fellow who is putting together a copyrighted Working Class History
>Test for the Labor Party sent me a copy of the test for my perusal.
>
>Question #4 asks, "Who was the richest man in America at the time of the
>Revolution?  Answer, George Washington.
>
>I very seriously doubt that Washington was the richest man in America at
>the time of the Revolution---even exempting Tories from consideration.
>Everything that I have ever read indicates that Washington was "land
>poor" i.e. he owned frontier properties that produced little or no
>income.  His main source of income was from farming, and, although large
>scale not any larger than any of his neighbors.  Washington did marry
>into money, when he married Martha.  Was her fortune any larger than any
>other colonial fortune?  If anything Douglas Southall Freeman
>Washington's most thorough biographer indicates that Washington was
>broke at the end of the Revolution.
>
>Any comments from the professionals on the list?
>
>Tom Lehman

I had thought that the answer was John Hancock (although mercantile 
wealth is hard to measure, and extremely volatile)...

But I could very easily be wrong...

Let me check...

Brad DeLong