Darmsdate, Joseph. An extensive manuscript doggerel written in English, offered as a Purim gift to Jacob I. Cohen.

(AMERICAN-JUDAICA)

12th March (Purim Day)

Richmond, Va.

1789

Beautifully drawn up on both sides is a poem of 48 rhyming lines. The address records “Jacob I. Cohen Present.” Accompanied by a few Yiddish words noting the date and the fact that it was indeed Purim in Richmond.

Purim “Gramen:” Richmond, Virginia, 1789. Darmsdate begs leave that he is unable to attend Cohen’s Purim banquet (“I hope this will find you all well & handy / and excuse my also as I can’t be one of your party/ this evening with you to drink or Soup…”), but makes up for it with these entertaining verses. Provides a most interesting account of the kind of convivial community Richmond was, Darmsdate versifies of a time “when we all joint in one debate / there was Cohnim Levim & Quakers/ Sadlers Leaf Pikers & Candel makers.”Darmsdate works in references to Haman, Ahaseurus, and Queen Esther, and closes with the wish that: “May he ho knowes us all Bless you as before / And keep you many Purim marry / And I will drink your health in a glass of cherry.” Darmsdate was the slightly Anglicized surname of Joshua Darmstadt, described as “a fat humorist” (see H.T. Ezekiel, The History of the Jews of Richmond from 1769 to 1917 (2013) p. 26). He arrived in America with the Hessians who were sent by the British Crown as auxiliaries to fight the American revolutionaries. Darmsdate, then called Darmstadt, was a sutler to their army. He was captured by the Americans, but after the war he swore allegiance to the State of Virginia, settled in Richmond, where he owned a coffee-house, and was a founding member of the city’s Beth Shalome congregation.