John Moss, Rebecca Lyons Moss, Samuel Lyons Moss, and Baby

Rebbeca Lyons Moss was the eldest child of Dutch immigrants, Hannah Levy and Eleazer Lyons. Born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1777, Rebecca moved with her family to Baltimore when she was young, although they would retain strong ties to Pennsylvania’s Jewish community.

In 1797 she married John Moss, recently arrived from England and working as a glass engraver. Over the next twenty years, her husband would become one of the wealthiest men in Philadelphia and owner of shipping empire. On April 2, 1822, when the first ship that John had built, the Moss, sailed from Philadelphia to great fanfare, one local newspaper commented on “striking likeness of the lady of J. Moss” of the ship’s carved figurehead.

The couple had nine children, including Samuel, depicted here, and Merriem.

John Moss was born in London on the first day of the year 1774, one of perhaps four children born Joseph L. Moss. Like his brothers Jacob and Samuel, John made his way to Philadelphia, arriving penniless at nineteen.

John’s brother Jacob became Philadelphia’s first Jewish bookseller and a purveyor of watercolor painting supplies. John got his start as a craftsman, presenting himself in Claypoole’s American Daily Advertiser as an engraver of glass in “a superb elegant and masterly style,” adding that, “merchants will find it conducive to their interest to have an engraving of something emblematical to their patriotic principles.” Moss believed he would find “succor in this city where the arts and sciences are in a flourishing state.” And indeed he did, opening a dry goods store in 1807, from which he soon began to import goods himself. By the 1820s, Moss had prospered into one of Philadelphia’s most successful importers, a shipping magnate with his own fleet, and later the director of several railroad companies, including the Pennsylvania Company, on which he served with Hyman Gratz.

Moss was involved in Freemasonry and became a member of the Saint George Society of Philadelphia, an organization dedicated to the “assistance of Englishmen in distress.” Despite continued involvement with the group, when the War of 1812 broke out, Moss not only contributed to funds for the defense of his adopted city, but enlisted as a private in the militia. He was also involved in Jewish life and contributed handsomely to Mikveh Israel.

His early experiences as a craftsman, certainly left a mark on Moss, and throughout his life he retained a finely honed aesthetic sensibility. His ships, for one, were known for their fine carvings, and Moss became an important patron of the arts. Moss imported two marble lions from Italy, copied from Canova’s sculptures at the tomb of Clement XIII in St Peter’s Basilica. He had the pair installed by the steps of the Merchant’s Exchange.

In 1823 Moss retired from active business, handing over control of the company to his brother Samuel. Although he continued to invest, and remained engaged with religious, cultural and civic institutions, it was politics that increasingly consumed Moss’ attention. Initially a Federal-Republican, but later a Jacksonian Democrat, Moss was elected Common Council in 1828. And when Greek independence became a cause célèbre, it was one of Moss’ ships, the Tontine, which sailed with provisions for the Greek rebels.

Samuel Lyons Moss was the second youngest of the Moss children to survive childhood. Samuel decided to pursue his own fortunes as a cotton merchant in New Orleans. It was there he met and married Isabelle Harris, the daughter if Catherine Nathan and Hyman Harris. Together they had seven children, including Ella Amelia, depicted here, whose twin sister Edith died at age two, and accompanied as well by a child slave.

In 1858 Isabelle took the children and moved to Europe. She had them educated there, moving between Dusseldorf, Dresden and Paris. She died in Paris in 1907, never having moved back to the United States, and with three of her children also opting to remain in Europe.

Samuel remained in America, spending his later years traveling the country. He died at the Stevenson House in Catherines, Ontario, a popular resort among affluent Southerners.

John Moss, Rebecca Lyons Moss, Samuel Lyons Moss, and Baby

1844