Tobias Family Letters

(AMERICA)

New York

Early 19th-century

Collection of ten Autograph Letters Signed

These letters were penned by various members of the Tobias Family of New York (not to be confused with the Tobias Family of Charleston). The writers were prominent merchants who did a brisk trade, oftimes with fellow Jews in Philadelphia, Richmond, Charleston, and New Orleans, as well as England. Although most of the letters are business correspondence, enough personal information is provided to allow a clear picture of family relations to emerge. We see letters of two generations of the family: the patriarch, Tobias or “T.J.”, born in Liverpool in 1785 (which explains letters from and to that destination), deceased 1861; his sons, Charles (1810-1855), Henry (1814-1846), and allusions to another son, Alfred (1823-1873), and daughters Sophia (1816-1892) and Amelia (1825-1906). Several of the Tobias siblings took to wed spouses from the notable Hendricks Family of New York. See M. H. Stern, Americans of Jewish Descent: A Compendium of Genealogy (1960) p. 213