Moses Benjamin Seixas was born into one of the principal Jewish families of New York. His father, Benjamin Mendes Seixas, was one of Rachel Levy and Isaac Mendes Seixas’ eight children who counted among his siblings, Grace Mendes Seixas Nathan and Gershom Mendes Seixas, the spiritual leader of New York’s Jewish community before and after the Revolutionary War. Benjamin was deeply involved with Congregation Shearith Israel, over which his brother presided. He worked as a saddler from a shop on Broad Street and served briefly in the Fusiliers Company of the First Batallion of the New York Militia during the Revolutionary War. When New York fell to the British, the Seixas family fled to Connecticut. There, in 1778, Benjamin had other things on his mind than the ongoing war. His father sent the following letter to Hyman Levy: “It is at the Request of my Son Ben: Seixas that I presume to trouble you with this, to acquaint you that he has informed his Mother & my Self that he has a very great Regard for yr. daughter Miss Zipporah Levy, & shou’d think himself very happy if he cou’d obtain your Consent, & approbation, as well as your amiable Spouses & all others connected with the Young Lady in permitting him Soon to be joined to her in the Sacred bonds of Matrimony.”
The following year, Benjamin married Zipporah Levy. They returned to New York after the war, and there Benjamin established a dry goods store. The couple would have more than twenty children; their first son was Moses Benjamin. As their ranks swelled, space became a problem, and when Moses was eleven, they moved into a larger house at 76 Broad Street, next door to Isaac Moses. The house later belonged to Harmon Hendricks, and later still it became the site of Delmonico’s restaurant, from 1836-1845. The year after the family moved into their new home, Benjamin became one of the founders of the New York Stock Exchange. Among Moses’ many siblings were Esther and Isaac Benjamin, who would follow in his uncle Gershom’s footsteps as hazan of Congregation Shearith Israel, serving in that capacity from 1828-1839.
In 1808, Moses married Judith Levy, the Kingston, Jamaica born daughter of Esther and Jacob Levy, Jr. They raised their fourteen children in New York.
