Myers, Moses (1753-1835) Archive of Correspondence and Documents.

Description:

Myers, Moses (1753-1835) Archive of Correspondence and Documents. Eight documents relating to the successful international trading business of Norfolk, Virginia's first recorded Jewish settler, and a successful international merchant, c. 1794-1816 including: the two-page invoices and bills lading for the cargoes of the schooners Lisbon and Eagle, 8 September 1794; a letter dated 18 August 1795, Norfolk, discussing business regarding the brig Norfolk, the scarcity of flour, and other business; an inventory of the ship Georgiana; a single leaf of a letter dated New York, 23 July 1812, lacking any subsequent pages and signature, regarding the Proclamation of the Act of War (of 1812); a copy of a claim for the value of the ship Nancy and its cargo, captured by the British sloop of war Goree while anchored off of Bermuda with a cargo of flour on 18 December of 1812; an autograph letter signed by Moses Myers to his son Myer Myers in Norway, sent from Norfolk, Virginia, 10 December 1817, regarding their business, with self-envelope and seal intact; inventories of several ships from September 1816, including the brig Fame and the schooner Ann Pollard; and Albert Almond of Norfolk's appointment as Notary Public, Norfolk, Virginia, 3 December 1816; various sizes. (8)
Moses Myers's company was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1819, ill-affected as it was by the War of 1812 and the Embargo Acts. The house he built in Norfolk, Virginia in 1792 is the "the most intact, and best documented, surviving residence of a Jewish family in the United States from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; in fact the house is the best surviving example of a known Jewish residence in United States of any period before 1800," according to the National Parks Service.
Estimate $800-1,000


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