CHAPTER XII.
THE PARTICIPATION OF JEWS IN THE WAR OF THE REVOLUTION.
Captain Isaac Meyers of the French and Indian War of 1754—David S. Franks and Isaac Franks—David Franks, the loyalist—Solomon and Lewis Bush—Major Benjamin Nones—Other Jewish Soldiers, of whom one was exempted from duty on Friday nights—The Pinto brothers—Commissary General Mordecai Sheftal of Georgia—Haym Solomon, the Polish Jew, and his financial assistance to the Revolution.
There were only about two thousand Jews in the colonies at the time when the war broke out, mostly well-to-do merchants of Spanish and Portuguese descent, of whom a considerable number had formerly lived in England or had trade connections with the mother country and with its various dependencies. Class interest and personal predilection for old associations were therefore in favor of their being in sympathy with the ruling power over the sea; still the number of Jewish loyalists was small. The largest number cast their lot with the colonists, and performed useful service in various ways—as merchants abstaining under non-importation agreements from buying English goods, as tradesmen furnishing supplies, as officials assisting the movements of the army, and as officers and soldiers in the line. In most of the colonies the Jews were then still barred from elective office by clauses in the charters and restrictive laws; but this did not prevent them from participating in the work of liberating the country, while on the other hand there was no desire manifested to exclude them from doing their patriotic duty, from which they were excluded in the middle of the preceding century by the less liberal burghers of New Netherlands.
The names of more than forty Jews who served in the continental armies of the Revolution have been preserved, and most of the data about them is to be found in Mr. Simon Wolf’s valuable work.[15] As they almost all belonged to the wealthier class, it is but natural that the number of officers is disproportionately large in this small band. Four of them reached the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, three became Majors, and there were at least half a dozen Captains. Nor were these the first Jews to bear arms or to hold military rank in the colonies. As early as 1754, during the French and Indian War, Isaac Meyers, a Jewish citizen of New York, called a town meeting at the “Rising Sun” Inn and organized a company of bateau men of which he became the captain. Two other Jews are named as taking part in the same war. Both of them served in the expedition across the Allegheny Mountains in the year above named.
Two members of the Franks family served creditably in the Continental army, while a third (they were probably cousins) became known through his sympathy for England. David Salisbury Franks, who is described as a “young English merchant,” settled in Montreal, Canada, in 1774, and was active both in business and in the affairs of the Jewish community. On May 3, 1775, he was arrested for speaking disrespectfully of the king, but was discharged six days later. In 1776 General Wooster appointed him paymaster to the American garrison at Montreal, and when the army retreated from Canada he enlisted as a volunteer and later joined a Massachusetts regiment. In 1778 he was ordered to serve under Count d’Estaing, then commanding the sea forces of the United States; upon the failure of the expedition he went to Philadelphia, becoming a member of General Benedict Arnold’s military family. In 1779 he went as a volunteer to Charlestown, serving as aide-de-camp to General Lincoln, and was later recalled to attend the trial of General Arnold for improper conduct while in command of Philadelphia, in which trial Franks was himself implicated. He was aide-de-camp to Arnold at the time of the latter’s treason, in September, 1780; on October 2 he was arrested, but when the case was tried the next day he was honorably acquitted. Not satisfied with this, Franks wrote to General Washington asking for a court of inquiry; on November 2, 1780, the court met at West Point and completely exonerated him. In 1781 he was sent by Robert Morris to Europe as bearer of dispatches to Jay in Madrid and to Franklin in Paris. On his return Congress reinstated him into the army with the rank of Major. On January 15, 1784, Congress resolved “that a triplicate of the definitive treaty [of peace] be sent out to the ministers plenipotentiary by Lieut.-Col. David S. Franks” and he again left for Europe. The next year he was appointed Vice-Consul at Marseilles; in 1786 he served in a confidential capacity in the negotiations connected with the treaty of peace and commerce made with Morocco, and on his return to New York in 1787 brought the treaty with him. On January 28, 1789, he was granted four hundred acres of land in recognition of his services during the Revolutionary War.
His relative, Isaac Franks (b. in New York, 1759; d. in Philadelphia, 1822), was only seventeen years old when he enlisted in Colonel Lesher’s regiment, New York Volunteers, and served with it in the battle of Long Island. On September 15 of the same year he was taken prisoner at the capture of New York, but effected his escape after three months’ detention. In 1777 he was appointed to the quartermaster’s department, and in January, 1778, he was made foragemaster, being stationed at West Point until February 22, 1781, when he was appointed by Congress ensign in the Seventh Massachusetts Regiment. He continued in that capacity until July, 1782, when he resigned on account of ill-health. He settled in Philadelphia, where he later held various civil offices, and was in 1794 appointed by Governor Mifflin Lieutenant-Colonel of the Second Regiment of Philadelphia County Brigade of the Militia of the Commonwealth. It was at his house at Germantown (now No. 5442 Main Street) that President Washington resided during the prevalence of yellow fever in 1793, when the seat of government was removed to that suburb of Philadelphia. His portrait, painted by his friend, Gilbert Stewart, is now in the Gibson collection of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia.
Col. Isaac Franks.
The third and loyalist member of the family, David Franks (b. in New York, 1720; d. in Philadelphia, 1793), son of Jacob Franks, settled in Philadelphia early in life, and was elected a member of the provincial Assembly in 1748. He supplied the army with provisions during the French and Indian War, and in 1755 he assisted to raise a fund for the defense of the colony. On November 7, 1765, he signed the Non-Importation Resolution; his name is also appended to an agreement to take the King’s paper money in lieu of gold and silver. During the Revolution he was an intermediary in the exchange of prisoners, as well as “an agent to the contractors for victualing the troops of the King of Great Britain.” He was twice imprisoned by the Colonial Government as an enemy to the American cause, and after his second release, in 1780, he left for England. He returned in 1783 and lived the last ten years of his life in Philadelphia.