# A Million Dollars
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-million-dollars/37053
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [October 15, 2000, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-million-dollars/37053 "2000-10-15T23:44:27Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2000, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-million-dollars/37053/1 "2000-10-15T23:44:27Z")
My eight year old daughter asked me this tonight at dinner: Who was the first person in the United States of America to earn one million dollars? Let’s say, not in a year, but be worth a million dollars.
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I can't even figure out where to start finding this one. Any thoughts?
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Cartooniverse
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### Author:  [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2000, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-million-dollars/37053/2 "2000-10-15T23:58:24Z")
My feeling is that we did this over at snopes, but can’t remember the exact answer. It certainly was someone around revolutionary time. Perhaps Stephen Girard, or ?? I’ll try to remember.
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### Author:  [@Alphagene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alphagene)
#### Post date: [October 16, 2000, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-million-dollars/37053/3 "2000-10-16T00:30:30Z")
We did this [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=33436) too.
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### Author:  [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)
#### Post date: [October 16, 2000, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-million-dollars/37053/4 "2000-10-16T02:47:25Z")
My mistake. I read it here and searched for the answer. But never had an answer to post.
The answer is–1st Billionaire=Rockefeller
1st Millionaire=depends on how you look at it. I think I read in my searches that there were at least one or two land owners in Colonial America _before_ John Jacob Astor came along, who were worth 1 mil.
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### Author:  [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)
#### Post date: [October 16, 2000, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-million-dollars/37053/5 "2000-10-16T21:07:30Z")
Alpha, as far as I’m concerned you can lock my thread now. I apologize, for the waste of space- I MUST learn to use the Archives correctly. Sorry.
Cartooniverse