Aaron Lopez (died May 28, 1782), who was Rivera’s son-in-law, became the great merchant prince of New England. (Ezra Stiles says of him, that for honor and extent of commerce he was probably surpassed by no merchant in America.) The advantages of this important seaport were quickly comprehended by this sagacious merchant, and to him in a larger degree than to any one else was due the rapid commercial development that followed. He was the means of inducing more than forty Jewish families to settle there, the heads of many of which were men of wealth, mercantile sagacity, high intelligence and enterprise. In fourteen years after Lopez settled there, Newport had 150 vessels engaged in trade with the West Indies alone, besides an extensive trade which was carried on as far as Africa and the Falkland Islands. The Jews were even then, nearly three hundred years after the expulsion, transferring to the liberal English colonies the wealth and the still more valuable business ability and commercial connections which they could not freely or safely employ as Marranos in Portugal. The emigration of secret Jews from that country increased after the great earthquake at Lisbon (1755), and a considerable portion went to Rhode Island. One of the vessels from that unhappy city, bound for Virginia, was driven into Narragansett Bay, and its Jewish passengers remained at Newport.
Isaac Touro (died Dec. 8, 1783) came from Jamaica to Newport, in 1760, to become the minister of its prosperous congregation, and occupied the position until the outbreak of the Revolution, when he returned to end his days in Jamaica. Until the time of his arrival worship was held in private houses, but in 1762 the congregation, which numbered between sixty and seventy members, decided to erect a Synagogue. The building, which is still standing, was completed and dedicated in 1763. There is evidence that the Jewish population of Newport, even before the Revolution, contained considerable German and Polish elements. According to one historian, the city numbered before the outbreak of hostilities 1,175 Jews—which was probably a majority of the Jews in all the colonies—while more than 300 worshipers attended the Synagogue.
Many Jewish rabbis from all parts of the world were attracted to Newport in those times. The above-named Ezra Stiles (1727–95), the famous president of Yale University, who was a preacher in Newport at that time, mentions several of them in his diary. He met one from Palestine in 1759, two from Poland, 1771 and 1772, respectively, a Rabbi Bosquila from Smyrna, a Rabbi Cohen from Jerusalem and Rabbi Raphael Hayyim Isaac Carregal (b. Hebron, Palestine, 1733; d. Barbadoes, 1777), who preached at Newport in Spanish in 1773, and became an intimate friend of the Christian theological scholar.
The arrival of a Jewish family from the West Indies to New Haven, Conn., in 1772, is noted by Stiles, who was a native of that place, in his diary as follows: “They are the first real Jews at that place with exception of the two brothers Pinto, who renounced Judaism and all religion.” This is substantially accurate in regard to New Haven, although one David, the Jew, is mentioned in the Hartford town records as early as 1659 (or 1650), and the residence of several Jews is implied in the entry which was made in the same records under date of September 2, 1661: “The same day ye Jews which at present live at John Marsh, his house, have liberty to sojourn in ye town for seven months.” They are mentioned at a subsequent period, too, which proves that they were permitted to remain longer than the allotted seven months. But all trace of them is lost afterwards, and almost two centuries had passed until the first Synagogue was erected in Hartford.
* * * * *
The Jews of New Amsterdam who had difficulties with Peter Stuyvesant in 1655 about their right to trade on the South River, which was subsequently re-named the Delaware (see above, chapter 9) were probably the first to set foot in what later became the colony and still later the State of Pennsylvania. This was twenty years before William Penn (1644–1718) became part proprietor of West Jersey, and more than a quarter of a century before he came over to America (1682) and founded the city of Philadelphia in the colony of Pennsylvania, which he received as a grant from the King of England in the preceding year.
The first Jewish resident of Philadelphia was Jonas Aaron, who was living there in 1703. A number of other Jews settled there in the first half of the eighteenth century and some of them, including David Franks (1720–93), Joseph Marks and Sampson Levy, became prominent in the life of the city. Isaac Miranda came there earlier (1710) and held several State offices, but he was a convert to Christianity, and his preferment cannot be considered a Jewish success. A German traveler mentions the Jews among the religious sects of Philadelphia in 1734. In 1738 Nathan Levy (1704–53) applied for a plot of ground to be used as a place of burial, and obtained it Sept. 25, 1740. This was the first Jewish cemetery in the city, and was henceforth known as the “Jews’ burying ground,” situated in Spruce street, near Ninth street. It later became the property of the Congregation Mickweh Israel, which had its beginnings about 1745 and is believed to have worshipped in a small house in Sterling alley. The question of building a Synagogue was raised in 1761, as a result of the influx of Jews from Spain and the West Indies, but nothing was then accomplished in that direction. In 1773, when Barnard Gratz (born in Germany, 1738; died in Baltimore, 1801) was parnas and Solomon Marache, treasurer, a subscription was started “in order to support our holy worship and establish it on a more solid foundation,” but no Synagogue was built until about ten years later. Barnard Gratz and his brother, Michael (b. 1740), with whom he came to America about 1755, were among the eight Jewish merchants of Philadelphia who signed the Non-Importation Resolution in 1765. The others were Benjamin Levy, David Franks, Sampson Levy, Hyman Levy, Jr.; Mathias Bush and Moses Mordecai.
Jews were to be found in Lancaster, Pa., as early as 1730, before the town and county were organized, and the name of Joseph Simon was preserved as the best known of the first arrivals. Myer Hart (d. about 1795) and his wife, Rachel, and their son, Michael (b. 1738), were one of the eleven original families that are classed as the founders of Easton, Pa., about 1750. Myer Hart heads the list of those furnishing material for the erection of a schoolhouse in Easton in 1755. He is first described as a shopkeeper and later as an innkeeper, and he was naturalized April 3, 1764. In 1780 his estate was valued at £2,095, and that of his son, Michael, at £2,261, these two being the heaviest taxed individuals in the county. At that period there were two other Jewish merchants residing at Easton, Barnard Levi and Joseph Nathan.
There is a tradition that Schafferstown, Pa., had a Synagogue and a Jewish cemetery in 1732, but the facts have not been verified, and there is a suspicion that the supposed Jews were German pietists who assumed Biblical names.
To the south of Pennsylvania the older colony of Maryland, which was established in 1634, “adopted religious freedom as the basis of the State;” but this boon was reserved for Christians only, although there is no record that the statutory death penalty for those who denied the trinity was ever carried out in practice. The physician, Jacob Lumbrozo (d. May, 1666), who hailed from Lisbon, Portugal, and came to Maryland about January, 1656, and later became an extensive land owner, was committed for blasphemy in 1658, but this did not prevent him from enjoying a lucrative practice and engaging in various mercantile pursuits in subsequent years. He was even granted letters of denization on Sept. 10, 1663, which vested him with all the privileges of a native or naturalized subject. But his case seems to have been exceptional, probably owing to his medical skill and his wealth. But in general, colonial Maryland was no place for Jews, and even after it became a part of the United States it was one of the last to remove the civil disabilities of its Jewish citizens.
Another Marrano physician from Lisbon, Dr. Samuel (Ribiero) Nuñez, who escaped from the clutches of the Inquisition and arrived, in 1733, in the newly founded colony of Georgia, found a more congenial place of refuge. Georgia was in respect to the Jews the reverse of New Netherlands; the trustees of the colony in England were opposed to permitting Jews to settle there, but General James Edward Oglethorpe (1696–1785), the Governor, was very friendly disposed towards them. Nuñez was one of forty Jewish immigrants who unexpectedly arrived at Savannah in the second vessel which reached the colony from England (July 11, 1733). The Governor, one of the noblest figures of colonial