Moses Myers

Moses Myers was born in New York, the eldest child of Haym Myers, a merchant who had arrived from Amsterdam in the 1740s, and Rachel Louzada, from one of the oldest of New York’s Sephardic families. In 1763 the family moved to Quebec.

Moses briefly served in the New York Second Battalion during the Revolutionary War, before setting up an import business, smuggling goods past the British blockade and selling them to colonists. Moses partnered in this with his cousin Samuel Myers, son of famed silversmith Myer Myers and Joyce Mears Myers, who had moved from New York to Amsterdam. They quickly established a network of contacts that stretched from Amsterdam to St. Eustatia, the Dutch Caribbean free-port that served as a lifeline for the Patriots until its capture by the British in 1781. The capture proved quite a blow for Myers cousins’ business, in turn compounded by the economic slump following the Revolution. In 1784 Moses and Samuel had to stop payment, and the cousins spent the next three years paying down their debts.

Finally in the clear, in 1787 Moses married Eliza Judah Chapman, a childless widow ten years his junior. The couple soon moved to Norfolk, Virginia, whose ports and houses were then being rebuilt and which Moses predicted would offer business opportunities.

His prediction proved right. Norfolk grew into a thriving commercial center, and Myers & Company would play a major role in that city’s growth, with numerous trade and banking concerns. In 1792 they bought a block-long Federal red brick townhouse, which would be home to the Myers family for five generations, preserved to this day as the Myers House. There they raised their nine children, including John, Samuel, and Myer. Moses’ old partner and cousin, Samuel, also settled in Virginia, going into business with his brother Moses Mears Myers in Richmond. Soon joined by their numerous siblings, that branch of the Myers family rose to prominence in business and civic life in Richmond. Samuel’s son, Gustavus Adolphus became perhaps that city’s most prominent Jew, serving on the city council for thirty years.

As Moses’ wealth grew, so did his prominence, not only within the Jewish community, by among Virginia elite. He counted among his friends Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe. He served on the Norfolk Common Council from 1794 to 1800, and as consul to France and the Netherlands (he spoke Dutch and French fluently), and became a major in the state militia. He was appointed superintendent of the Bank of Richmond and was a founder of the Norfolk Chamber of Commerce.

The Crash of 1819 was devastating financially for Moses, and he spent the rest of his life trying to recover, which he never did, but the Myers family would remain among Norfolk’s most prominent for generations to come.

Moses Myers

c. 1808