Harriet Tobias was born in London to Rebecca Levy and Tobias Tobias. Tobias, discouraged by economic conditions in his native Liverpool and intrigued by what he had heard from contacts about the prospects in the United States, arrived in New York in 1816 to make a trial run at business there. After three years of hard work, he returned to Liverpool to wrap up his affairs there and collect his family. Harriet, along with her mother and four siblings, arrived in New York as an 8 year old in 1820. . Nine years later, at age 17, Harriet married the 25 year old copper manufacturer Henry Hendricks, brother-in-law to her married sister Frances and son of the wealthy industrialist Harmon Hendricks. Harriet would bear Henry eight children, two sons and six daughters. She survived her husband by 13 years, and died at age 62.