In 1729 Samuel Myers-Cohen, a militia veteran of King George’s War married Rachel Asher, who, widowed a decade prior, had a ten-year old daughter, Abigail Levy. Their marriage lasted only three years, with Rebecca passing away in 1732, less than a year after their second child, Richea, was born. Samuel soon remarried, to Rachel Michaels, and Richea gained another pair of half-sisters.

Raised in New York, Richea, in 1760, married Barnard Gratz, a Philadelphia based merchant, who had arrived from Germany six years before, and was then finding great success in frontier land speculation and international trade. After the Revolutionary War, Barnard would join other notable Philadelphia Jews in protesting Pennsylvania’s limits on Jewish liberties. The couple had two daughters, Fanny and Rachel—the former died in infancy; the latter married Solomon Etting.