Isaac de Lyon’s father, Abraham, was among a boatload of passengers that formed the first Jewish presence in Savannah. Fleeing Portugal where he had owned vineyards, he tried to introduce grape growing to Georgia. Isaac was born in Savannah, though in 1741 the De Lyon family, along with the rest of Savannah’s Jews, moved north from fear of the Spanish. They made their home in Charleston, though Isaac would return to the city of his birth in 1762 with his new wife Rinah Tobias de Lyon. They had four children, including daughter Judith. In Savannah, De Lyon worked as a shopkeeper, selling deerskin, chocolate, gingerbread, linseed oil, mackerel, and more.