CHAPTER XII

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THE PARTICIPATION OF JEWS IN THE WAR OF THE REVOLUTION.

Captain Isaac Meyers of the French and Indian War of 1754――David S. Franks and Isaac Franks――David Franks, the loyalist――Solomon and Lewis Bush――Major Benjamin Nones――Other Jewish Soldiers, of whom one was exempted from duty on Friday nights――The Pinto brothers――Commissary General Mordecai Sheftal of Georgia――Haym Solomon, the Polish Jew, and his financial assistance to the Revolution.

There were only about two thousand Jews in the colonies at the time when the war broke out, mostly well-to-do merchants of Spanish and Portuguese descent, of whom a considerable number had formerly lived in England or had trade connections with the mother country and with its various dependencies. Class interest and personal predilection for old associations were therefore in favor of their being in sympathy with the ruling power over the sea; still the number of Jewish loyalists was small. The largest number cast their lot with the colonists, and performed useful service in various ways――as merchants abstaining under non-importation agreements from buying English goods, as tradesmen furnishing supplies, as officials assisting the movements of the army, and as officers and soldiers in the line. In most of the colonies the Jews were then still barred from elective office by clauses in the charters and restrictive laws; but this did not prevent them from

## participating in the work of liberating the country, while on the other

hand there was no desire manifested to exclude them from doing their patriotic duty, from which they were excluded in the middle of the preceding century by the less liberal burghers of New Netherlands.

The names of more than forty Jews who served in the continental armies of the Revolution have been preserved, and most of the data about them is to be found in Mr. Simon Wolf’s valuable work.[15] As they almost all belonged to the wealthier class, it is but natural that the number of officers is disproportionately large in this small band. Four of them reached the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, three became Majors, and there were at least half a dozen Captains. Nor were these the first Jews to bear arms or to hold military rank in the colonies. As early as 1754, during the French and Indian War, Isaac Meyers, a Jewish citizen of New York, called a town meeting at the “Rising Sun” Inn and organized a company of bateau men of which he became the captain. Two other Jews are named as taking part in the same war. Both of them served in the expedition across the Allegheny Mountains in the year above named.

Two members of the Franks family served creditably in the Continental army, while a third (they were probably cousins) became known through his sympathy for England. David Salisbury Franks, who is described as a “young English merchant,” settled in Montreal, Canada, in 1774, and was

## active both in business and in the affairs of the Jewish community. On

May 3, 1775, he was arrested for speaking disrespectfully of the king, but was discharged six days later. In 1776 General Wooster appointed him paymaster to the American garrison at Montreal, and when the army retreated from Canada he enlisted as a volunteer and later joined a Massachusetts regiment. In 1778 he was ordered to serve under Count d’Estaing, then commanding the sea forces of the United States; upon the failure of the expedition he went to Philadelphia, becoming a member of General Benedict Arnold’s military family. In 1779 he went as a volunteer to Charlestown, serving as aide-de-camp to General Lincoln, and was later recalled to attend the trial of General Arnold for improper conduct while in command of Philadelphia, in which trial Franks was himself implicated. He was aide-de-camp to Arnold at the time of the latter’s treason, in September, 1780; on October 2 he was arrested, but when the case was tried the next day he was honorably acquitted. Not satisfied with this, Franks wrote to General Washington asking for a court of inquiry; on November 2, 1780, the court met at West Point and completely exonerated him. In 1781 he was sent by Robert Morris to Europe as bearer of dispatches to Jay in Madrid and to Franklin in Paris. On his return Congress reinstated him into the army with the rank of Major. On January 15, 1784, Congress resolved “that a triplicate of the definitive treaty [of peace] be sent out to the ministers plenipotentiary by Lieut.-Col. David S. Franks” and he again left for Europe. The next year he was appointed Vice-Consul at Marseilles; in 1786 he served in a confidential capacity in the negotiations connected with the treaty of peace and commerce made with Morocco, and on his return to New York in 1787 brought the treaty with him. On January 28, 1789, he was granted four hundred acres of land in recognition of his services during the Revolutionary War.

His relative, Isaac Franks (b. in New York, 1759; d. in Philadelphia, 1822), was only seventeen years old when he enlisted in Colonel Lesher’s regiment, New York Volunteers, and served with it in the battle of Long Island. On September 15 of the same year he was taken prisoner at the capture of New York, but effected his escape after three months’ detention. In 1777 he was appointed to the quartermaster’s department, and in January, 1778, he was made foragemaster, being stationed at West Point until February 22, 1781, when he was appointed by Congress ensign in the Seventh Massachusetts Regiment. He continued in that capacity until July, 1782, when he resigned on account of ill-health. He settled in Philadelphia, where he later held various civil offices, and was in 1794 appointed by Governor Mifflin Lieutenant-Colonel of the Second Regiment of Philadelphia County Brigade of the Militia of the Commonwealth. It was at his house at Germantown (now No. 5442 Main Street) that President Washington resided during the prevalence of yellow fever in 1793, when the seat of government was removed to that suburb of Philadelphia. His portrait, painted by his friend, Gilbert Stewart, is now in the Gibson collection of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia.

Illustration: Col. Isaac Franks.

The third and loyalist member of the family, David Franks (b. in New York, 1720; d. in Philadelphia, 1793), son of Jacob Franks, settled in Philadelphia early in life, and was elected a member of the provincial Assembly in 1748. He supplied the army with provisions during the French and Indian War, and in 1755 he assisted to raise a fund for the defense of the colony. On November 7, 1765, he signed the Non-Importation Resolution; his name is also appended to an agreement to take the King’s paper money in lieu of gold and silver. During the Revolution he was an intermediary in the exchange of prisoners, as well as “an agent to the contractors for victualing the troops of the King of Great Britain.” He was twice imprisoned by the Colonial Government as an enemy to the American cause, and after his second release, in 1780, he left for England. He returned in 1783 and lived the last ten years of his life in Philadelphia.

Solomon Bush, a native of Philadelphia, the son of Matthias Bush, was an officer in the Pennsylvania militia for ten years. In 1777 he was appointed by the Supreme Council of Pennsylvania Deputy Adjutant-General of the State militia. In September of that year he was dangerously wounded during a skirmish and had to be taken to Philadelphia. When the British captured the city in December, 1777, he was taken prisoner, but released on parole. In 1779 he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, and was pensioned in 1785.

A Colonel Isaacs of the North Carolina militia is mentioned as “wounded and taken prisoner at Camden, August 16, 1780; exchanged July, 1781.” (Wolf, _l. c._, p. 49.)

Lewis Bush became First Lieutenant of the Sixth Pennsylvania Battalion on January 9, 1776, and Captain on June 24 of the same year. He was transferred to Colonel Thomas Hartley’s additional Continental Regiment in January, 1777, and was commissioned Major March 12, 1777. He

## participated in a number of battles, and at the battle of Brandywine,

on September 11, 1777, he received wounds from which he died four days later.

Benjamin Nones (d. 1826), a native of Bordeaux, France, emigrated to Philadelphia in 1777, and at once took up arms on behalf of the colonies. He served as a volunteer in Captain Verdier’s regiment under Count Pulaski during the siege of Savannah, and on September 15, 1779, received a certificate for gallant conduct on the field of battle. He attained the rank of Major, and it is stated that he was with General De Kalb at the battle of Camden, S. C., on August 16, 1780.

Jacob de Leon and Jacob de la Motta were captains under de Kalb; Captain Noah Abraham was called out with the battalion of Cumberland County militia of Pennsylvania, July 28, 1777. Aaron Benjamin (d. 1829), who started as an ensign in the Eighth Connecticut Regiment January 1, 1777, rose three years later to the rank of Regimental Adjutant. Manuel Mordecai Noah (1747–1825) served under General Marion; Isaac Israel rose to the rank of Captain in the Eighth Virginia Regiment in 1777, and Nathaniel Levy, of Baltimore, is mentioned as having served under Lafayette. There is a record of a certificate issued by the New York Committee of Safety, in January, 1776, which read as follows: “Hart Jacobs, of the Jewish religion, having signified to this committee that it is inconsistent with his religious profession to perform military duty on Friday nights, being part of the Jewish Sabbath, it is ordered that he be exempted from military duty on that night of the week....” (See “Publications,” XI, p. 163.)

Three, and probably four, brothers of the old Pinto family who resided in Connecticut, took an active part in the Revolution. Abraham Pinto was a member of Company X, Seventh Regiment, of that State, in 1775; William Pinto (of whom it ♦is not certain that he was a brother) appears as a volunteer in 1779 and 1781. Jacob Pinto, who was in New Haven as early as 1759, appears to have been a member of a political committee in that city in 1775, and his name is found among those of other influential citizens of the place in a petition to the Council of Safety for the removal of certain Tories in 1776. Solomon Pinto served as an officer of the Connecticut line throughout the war, and was wounded in the British attack on New Haven July 5 and 6, 1779. He was one of the original members, in his State, of the Society of the Cincinnati, which at the beginning included only meritorious officers of the Revolutionary army.

Mordecai Sheftal (b. at Savannah, Ga., 1735; d. there 1797), who was one of the first white children born in Savannah, being the son of Benjamin Sheftal, who came there in 1733, was the chairman of the Revolutionary Parochial Committee of his native city. In 1777 he was appointed Commissary-General to the troops of Georgia, and in October of the following year he became Deputy Commissary of Issues in South Carolina and Georgia. His imprisonment after Savannah was taken by the British attracted much attention and the description of it forms an interesting part of the local history of that period. In 1782 Sheftal appeared in Philadelphia, which was then the haven for ♦patriot refugees, as one of the founders of the Mickweh Israel congregation. In the following year, in common with other officers, he received a grant of land in what was called “The Georgia Continental Establishment” as a reward for services during the war. He subsequently figures as one of the incorporators of the Union Society (1786), which is still one of Savannah’s representative organizations; and his name is also closely associated with the early history of Freemasonry in the United States.

Sheftal and the above-named Manuel Mordecai Noah, besides their active service in the army, also contributed large sums to the cause of the Revolution. Other Jews advanced considerable sums, some of them almost beyond their means. The list of those who rendered valuable and timely assistance includes Benjamin Levy, Hyman Levy, Samuel Lyons, Isaac Moses and Benjamin Jacobs.

There was one, however, who gave more than all of them together, who gave away practically all he possessed, and neither he nor his rightful heirs ever recovered the large debts which the new nation owed to him. This man was Haym Salomon (b. in Lissa, Poland, now a part of Prussia, in 1740; d. in Philadelphia, Jan. 6, 1785). He probably traveled extensively before coming to America, because he could speak German, French and Italian, besides Polish and Russian, an accomplishment which could hardly have been acquired by a Jew in Poland in that period. He settled in New York, and there married Rachel, a daughter of Moses B. Franks (a brother of Jacob Franks). He was arrested by the British as an American spy soon after they occupied New York in September, 1776, and was kept in confinement for a considerable period. When his linguistic proficiency became known he was turned over to the Hessian General, Heister, who gave him an appointment in the commissariat department. He used the greater liberty which was now accorded him to be of service to the French and American prisoners, and to assist a number of them to effect their escape. On August 11, 1778, he escaped from New York and settled in Philadelphia. He soon became a prominent exchange broker, and did considerable business with Robert Morris (1734–1806), the financier of the American Revolution,[16] who was Superintendent of Finance for the colonies in 1781–84. He also became broker to the French consul and the treasurer of the French army which came to assist Washington, and fiscal agent to the French minister to the United States, Chevalier de la Luzerne. In these capacities large sums passed through his hands and he became the principal individual depositor of the Bank of North America, which was founded by Morris. The latter, who kept a diary, mentions in it nearly seventy-five separate transactions in which Salomon’s name figures in the negotiations of bills of exchange, by which means the credit of the government was maintained in this period; Salomon practically being the sole agent employed by Morris for this purpose. Most of the money advanced by Louis XVI. to the cause of the Revolution and the proceeds of the loans negotiated in Holland passed through his hands.

He advanced aid to numerous prominent men of this period. James Madison, in a letter (Aug. 27, 1782) urging the forwarding of remittances from his State which he represented in Philadelphia, wrote: “I have for some time been a pensioner on the favor of Haym Salomon, a Jew broker.” On September 30 of the same year he writes: “The kindness of our little friend in Front Street, near the coffee house, is a fund which will preserve me from extremities, but I never resort to it without great mortification, as he obstinately rejects all recompense. The price of money is so usurious that he thinks it ought to be extorted from none but those who aim at profitable speculation. To a necessitous delegate he gratuitously spares a supply out of his private stock.” James Wilson (1742–98), another famous delegate to the Continental Congress, who sometimes acted as Salomon’s attorney, relates that without his client’s aid, “administered with equal generosity and delicacy” he would have been forced to retire from the public service.

Haym Salomon died suddenly, at the age of forty-five, leaving a widow and two infant children, named Ezekiel and Haym M. The inventory of his estate showed that he had lent to the government more than $350,000, but although these certificates of indebtedness were almost all that was left of his wealth, they were never paid, and all efforts of his heirs in later times to recover from Congress payment on these claims, or even to obtain a token of recognition for his great services, have thus far proved unsuccessful.

Salomon also took an active part in Jewish communal affairs in Philadelphia and was one of the original members of the Congregation Mickweh Israel. In 1784 he was treasurer of what was probably the first Jewish charitable organization in that city.

His son, ♦Haym M. Salomon, lived in New York and was a dealer in powder and shot, occupying a store in Front Street in the time of the great fire of 1835. William Salomon (b. in Mobile, Ala., Oct. 9, 1852) of New York is a great-grandson of ♦Haym Salomon.

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