The oldest of Frances and Jacob Marx’s seven children, Joseph Marx was born in Bremen in 1772. His father served as the court physician to the Elector of Hanover but when he died suddenly in his mid-forties, Joseph, a mere seventeen, found himself suddenly with the responsibility to help care for his mother and siblings, the youngest of whom was only a year old.

The family moved to Richmond, where Joseph’s name first appears in the records of congregation Beth Shalome in 1791. Although he started with little, Marx quickly assumed a place of importance in the business life of Richmond, pursuing various mercantile and real estate interests, while his brother Asher proved similarly successful as a merchant and importer based in New York.

Although the exact date is unknown, Joseph married Richea Myers within a few years of his arrival in America. She was the daughter of famed silversmith Myer Myers and Elkaleh Mears Myers, and like Marx, she had recently suffered the death of her father. In the wake of that tragedy, her family had relocated from New York to Richmond, and her brothers, Samuel and Moses Mears Myers would achieve a prominence in the business, civic, and Jewish life in Richmond in parallel to that of Marx.

Joseph and Richea had nine children, including Adeline, whom they brought up in an opulent mansion, which he named, in a nod to his roots, Hanover House. With the sudden death, in 1827, of Solomon Jacobs, a man who had served as a Richmond city councilman, recorder, and even as acting mayor, Marx became guardian of his dear friend’s children.

Marx counted Thomas Jefferson as an acquaintance, and in 1812 he was appointed to the board of directors of the Farmers Bank of Virginia. Upon his death, the Richmond Enquirer said of Mark that he was “universally respected.”