USA > Rhode Island > Newport County > Newport > The story of the Jews of Newport; two and a half centuries of Judaism, 1658-1908 > Part 14
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Captain Mordecai M. Myers.
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in this humble and very dangerous task amidst a storm of iron missiles which flew around him, while many stout-hearted soldiers sought shelter in the embankment. The British cannonade was unable to stop Judah Touro from performing his duty; but, while engaged in this perilous duty, he was struck in the thigh by a twelve pound shot which tore out a large mass of his flesh, producing a dangerous wound and leaving him unconscious on the battlefield.
At the same time when Judah Touro enrolled in the army and was assigned to the regiment of the Louisiana Militia, a very intimate friend of his, Rezin D. Shepherd, followed suit, and was attached to Captain Ogden's Horse Troop. Touro and Shephard were devoted friends, and their intimacy was intense to the point of romance. They were both enterprising merchants in New Orleans, Shepherd having come there about the same time as Touro at the beginning of the century. They lived under the same roof, and were separated only by death.
Fortune had it that Shepherd became the aide of Commodore Patterson, and was assisting him to erect his battery on the right bank of the river in the defense of the city from that position. While engaged in this task, Shepherd crossed the river to procure two masons to do some work on the Commodore's battery. This was on January 1, 1815. The first person Mr. Shepherd saw on reaching the other side of the river was Reuben Kemper, who told him that Touro was dead. Upon this Shepherd forgot about his mission, and rushed to the
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place where Touro was lying apparently in a dying condition. It was near a wall of an old building that had been demolished by the British in the rear of Jackson's quarters. Dr. Kerr, who was dressing the wounds shook his head, indicating that there was no hope for him. Shepherd not discouraged by the doctor's opinion, procured a cart and brought Touro to the city. While on the way, he kept him alive with brandy. He brought him to his house, and secured some devoted women who had volunteered their services to help Jackson's wounded, to take care of him. Thus Touro was nursed back to health. It was not until late in the day that Shepherd was able to leave Touro and perform the important duty confided to him. When he returned to Patterson's battery, the Commodore was filled with anger at Shepherd's neglect of his military duty, but was appeased when the latter frankly exclaimed, "Commodore, you can hang me or shoot me, and it will be alright; but my best Friend needed my assistance, and nothing on earth could have induced me to neglect him"27 Commodore Patterson appreciated the feeling of Shepherd for his friend, and thought no more about the incident.
Judah Touro alluded to this event and his undying friendship for Shepherd in his will saying, "And as regards my other designated executor, say my dear, old and devoted friend, Rezin Davis Shepherd, to whom, under Divine Providence, I was greatly indebted for the preservation of my life when I was wounded on the 1st of January 1815".
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The Newport Jewish community, however, could glory little in the heroes from afar. Those who had remained in the city such as Moses Lopez; the mother of Jacob Rodrigues Rivera ; Abraham Rodrigues Rivera the son of Jacob, who was born in Newport the year the synagogue was dedicated; Sarah Lopez, the widow of Aaron; Jacob and Moses Lopez; some of the children of Moses Seixas; some of the relatives of Moses Levy, were reduced in circumstances and left Newport, settling in New York. What the War of Independence began, the War of 1812 finished. The War of 1812 was the last deathblow to the Jewish community of Newport.
On May 5, 1816, Stephen Gould entered in his Diary, "Widow Lopez and family, also Widow Rivera aged 96, sailed for New York".28 In October of the same year, this diarist noted, "Moses and Jacob Lopez went to New York- This was probably a prospecting tour for the purpose of consultation as to the pro- babilities of bettering their condition".29 On the eighteenth of March, 1822, Jacob Lopez died. On the 5th of October, 1822, "Moses Lopez", writes Gould, "the last Jew, left Newport for New York".30 This completed the dispersion of the Jews from their beloved city of Newport, which had welcomed them with open arms for more than a century and a half, giving them shelter and protection from hatred, bigotry and persecution.
Moses Lopez left Newport in ill health, reduced in circumstances and heartbroken. He left whatever
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property he had to the care of Stephen Gould, who was kind enough to take care of it and send the proceeds to him in New York. What grieved Moses Lopez most was leaving behind the beautiful shrine that his brethren and he had built and which they all had cherished so dearly.
When twelve years later the seats of the newly built Crosby Street Synagogue of the Congregation Shearith Israel of New York were allotted, among their holders were the Seixas, the Levys, the Lopez and the Judah families together with many more names of old Newporters or their descendants.31
Newport the city which once had been flourishing and had many Jewish citizens; which had welcomed Jewish dignitaries from Palestine, from Poland, from Holland, from the West Indies, and from other parts of the Globe; the city which boasted of the most beautiful synagogue in America; the city where the once down- trodden and persecuted Marranos had returned to the faith of their fathers and became ardent observers of Jewish tradition and law; that city now remained without a single Jew who might guard and care for its two historic landmarks, the synagogue and the Jewish cemetery.
The empty synagogue and the neglected cemetery were the only testimony to the once flourishing Jewish community, and they remained desolate. The former was open to the invasion of "bats and moles", and the ransacking for sport of its scattered furniture by the boys who found entrance through the porches and
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windows. The latter lay waste and unprotected from the intruders who found admittance through the broken wooden fences, "augmenting the ravages which time and neglect had already wrought".
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CHAPTER XII
NOBLE MEMORIES
Destiny has not been altogether cruel to Newport's shrines of American Israel. The Jews who left Newport cherished an unfading love for the city of their nativity or adoption. We have seen how Aaron Lopez felt about Newport, the city in which he found refuge from the Portuguese Inquisition. Similar feeling was exhibited by all. The attachment to Newport was such, that if they were unable to spend their lives there, they at least wished to be laid to rest with their fathers in the Newport cemetery. David Lopez, a brother of Aaron, sought to better his circumstances in Boston after the Revolution. Before he died there, he expressed in his will the desire to be interred in the family plot in Newport.1 His last wish was promptly carried out,? though time has erased the mark of his resting place in the cemetery.
The Hays family likewise settled in Boston after the Revolution, and later members went to Richmond, Virginia. They had the same affection for Newport, ordering in their last testaments to be interred in Newport. Whatever tombstones remain in the old cemetery, those that time and wear have not destroyed,
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testify to many more of the old community, who though living far from Newport, sought to be united with their coreligionists, at least in their last resting place.
The Newport Jews never forgot their cemetery and their synagogue. This was especially true of the family of the Reverend Isaac Touro, their first minister. Around 1780, after the British had left Newport, he together with his family, left Newport for New York, where, for a while, he officiated as Hazan of the Congregation Shearith Israel in the absence of the Reverend Gershom Mendes Seixas, who at that time was in Philadelphia.3 The Reverend Mr. Touro had two sons, Abraham and Judah, and a daughter, Rebecca, born to him in Newport. On January 1, 1781, another son whom they named Nathan was born in New York.4 Shortly after this, Mr. Touro and his family again took up the wanderer's staff and moved to Kingston, Jamaica, where this "able and faithful Minister of the Congregation Yeshuat Israel", as the memorial stone in the old cemetery reads, died at the youthful age of 46 years. His son Nathan had passed away in the interim. The consort of the minister, Mrs. Reyna Touro, who was a sister of Moses Michael Hays then residing in Boston, not long after her husband's demise, sought shelter with her brother. Her three children, Abraham, Judah and Rebecca, accompanied her. Moses Michael Hays made the life of his widowed sister and her children very comfortable. When Reyna died at the age of 44, on September 28, 1787, her children were taken care of by their uncle, as if they had been his own.
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Moses Michael Hays brought up both Abraham and Judah Touro for business careers. In 1801 after several successful business engagements one of which took him in a ship to the Mediterranean Sea where he took part in a battle with a French privateer and emerged successfully, Judah Touro left Boston for New Orleans where he established himself in business. There he amassed a considerable fortune. Abraham Touro, who never married, remained in business in Boston and likewise attained financial success. By the end of the second decade of the nineteenth century, both brothers were noted for their liberal contributions to charitable and religious institutions of various kinds.5
Abraham and Judah always remained faithful to the traditions of their father, and to their Jewish heritage which by their conduct they caused others to honor likewise. In 1816, Abraham Touro appeared before the Selectmen of the town of Boston requesting the Town Clerk publicly to set forth in the records that he was of the Jewish religion and that he belonged to a synagogue of Jews.6 Judah throughout his life exemplified his Judaism of which he was proud.
The first to leave a permanent record of his affection- ate memories of the old Jewish cemetery and the syna- gogue in Newport was Abraham Touro. When through God's grace he had the ability, he built a brick wall around this historic spot. This was during the summer of 1822. It took the place of the dilapidated wooden fence which was broken in many places and had permit- ted the grounds to go to ruin. This wall cost him a
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thousand dollars.
In connection with the building of this brick wall, Abraham Touro wrote to Stephen Gould, who was in charge of the historic relics of the Jews, on the 22nd of June, 1822, "I hope by this time the work is completed, and done to please all, I mean you and myself, if it should turn out that it is not finished, I wish you would have it done soon, or let me know when it will be".7 Abraham concludes his leter by saying: "If any friends call on thee for the keys to see the places, you will have the goodness to attend them, or let them have the keys with their promise to close all again and return them to you".
The synagogue and cemetery had already become objects for admiration rather than merely places where the Jewish ritual was performed. Stephen Gould, who promptly responded to this letter of Abraham Touro, received another communication from the latter only three weeks later. From this letter it is to be seen that the work was nearly finished by this time. It was probably the last thing Abraham Touro wrote: "Your esteemed favor, by friend Jones, was handed me, which contents please accept my thanks for your attention. I only have to remark as respects the covering the top of the wall, I shall leave it to you and better Judges, only don't take off the top stone, why will not a (blank) on the wall (blank) & it, which will answer all effect I think, but do what you think best, but have it done. I don't know but what I shall come to see it after you have it finished".ª
In this last remark, little did Abraham Touro foresee
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the future. He did not come to see the wall around the burial ground; before he was able to do so, he was gather- ed unto his fathers. Through the bolting of horses, he met with a tragic accident which ended in his death on Friday, October 18, 1822. His last wish was to be interred in the Jewish cemetery in Newport. Upon his deathbed he made a legacy for the repair and perpetual upkeep of the synagogue and the street leading up to the cemetery in Newport, the city of his birth and the city he loved.
In his will he specified: "Item : I give Ten thousand dollars to the Legislature of the State of Rhode Island, for the purpose of supporting the Jewish Synagogue in that State, in Special Trust to be appropriated to that object, in such maner as the said Legislature together with the Municipal Authority of the Town of Newport may from time to time direct and appoint.
"Item: I give to the Municipal authority of the town of Newport in Rhode Island the Sum of Five thousand dollars, in Special Trust and confidence that they will appropriate the same in such manner they may judge best, for repairing and preserving the Street from the Burying Ground in said Town to the Main Street".
In his last minutes, he remembered the holy shrine where his father had officiated. Thus it was destined that this edifice should be preserved for posterity as a monument of past virtues. Abraham Touro immortal- ized his family name together with the synagogue. He even saw to it that the street leading to the synagogue should be preserved and cared for.
He stipulated as the very first item in his will, “I
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NOBLE MEMORIES
desire and direct that I may be buried at Newport, Rhode Island, in such manner, as I have expressed to my friends".
The last wish of Abraham Touro was carried out and, on Sunday, October 20, 1822, he was interred near his mother in the old Jewish cemetery. The funeral was not elaborate. He was buried in a simple and quiet manner, symbolic of the simple and quiet life he had led.
A few days later, when the Newport Mercury appeared on October 26, it contained the following news item:
"Died at Boston, on Friday, the 18th., inst., Abraham Touro, Esq., Merchant, aged 48 years, - - a gentlemen whose urbanity of manners, and hospitable disposition had secured him esteem and respect of all who were personally acquainted with him. His death was occasioned by an accident. While viewing the military parade at Boston on the 3d instant, in a chaise, his horse was frightened by firing of artillery, and became un- manageable, and in leaping from the carriage, fractured his leg so severely, that, not withstanding the best surgical aid, a mortification ensued which terminated his existence in this world. Mr. Touro was a native of this Town. - - Besides several gifts and remembrances to private individuals, amounting, it is said, to upwards of 10,000 dollars, he has bequeathed 80,000 Dollars to the followng institutions :
"Massachusetts General Hospital $10,000; Boston Female Asylum $5,000; Asylum for Indigent Boys $5,000; Humane Society $5,000; Synagogue of New
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York $10,000; Synagogue - - this town $10,000.
"The remains of Mr. Touro were brought to this Town, and, on Sunday last, Oct. 20, was respectfully interred in the Jewish Cemetery".
At the time of his death the synagogue was closed. It was his earnest wish to see the revival of the Jewish religion in Newport, and the synagogue kept up for such a purpose. His hope was not realized until more than half a century later. But, had it not been for his foresight, one doubts whether the synagogue would have survived to the time when Jews again began to settle in Newport towards the end of the nineteenth century.
The grave of Abraham Touro was properly marked by a tombstonse having the following inscription :
Erected To The Memory of ABRAHAM TOURO of Boston, Son of Isaac and Reyna Touro; Who Was Suddenly Taken From This Transitory State in the 48th. year of a Happy and Useful Life Deeply Lamented by His Afflicted Relatives And Innumerable Friends Distinguished and Esteemed in Those Virtues And Good Qualities Which Exalt The Character of Man. He was Interred in this place by His Own Desire, on the 20th., of October. 1822.
The Hebrew Inscription on the Monument may be translated as follows:
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"Fear not, Abram, I am thy shield, thine exceeding great reward", Monument of the Burial Place
of the Worthy and Esteemed Abraham, son of The Sweet Singer of Israel, Isaac Touro, of Blessed memory, Liberated in good repute, in the City of Boston, for his eternal home In the World reserved for the righteous; In the forty eighth year of his life, on the sixth day In the month of Cheshvan of the year
"A good name is better than fragrant oil, and the day of death is better than the day of one's birth!" (5583) Minor Notations May His Soul Be Bound in the Band of Life".
Titus Welles, the Boston executor of Abraham Touro's will informed the municipal authorities of Newport, as well as the Legislature of the State of Rhode Island, about the bequests for the synagogue and the street in Newport, quoting the will in full. The letter to Newport was presented at a "Meeting of the Town Council of the Town of Newport, on Monday, June 2nd, A. D. 1823". In this letter, in which he informs the authorities of both bequests and says that he has also written to the State Legislature and is awaiting to hear their response, Welles writes, "I hope to be able to pay over these sums in full in July, and at a proper time, it may be needful to confer on the subject of the meaning of the Donor, regarding these Legacies".9 Whereupon the Council resolved at this meeting "that Nicholas Taylor and William Ennis, Esq., be a committee to consult and act with the Committee appointed by the General Assembly for the purpose of forming such an Act as may be deemed proper and necessary, for carry-
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ing into effect the liberal Views and intentions of the deceased Mr. Touro".10
To the General Assembly, Welles, after quoting that part of the will relating to the synagogue, wrote: "It may be timely for me to remark on the subject of this Bequest regarding what I suppose to have been the intention of the Donor. From the decayed state of the Synagogue in Newport, and the want of any family or persons of the Jewish persuasion there, the deceased with some others seriously resolved to look into the situation of the property and devise some plan to revive the Jewish religion there; and in such way and manner as to induce some of that nation to settle and keep up a worship at least in such a degree that the building enclosures and the Institution itself should not go entirely to ruin and decay".
Welles, who was a close and intimate friend of Abraham Touro voiced the pious intentions of the donor.
The Legislature acted on the letter of Abraham Touro's executor, and duly appointed the Honorable William Hunter, Chairman of a Committee "To frame an act for carrying into effect the Donation of the said Abraham Touro deceased".11
In regard to the street leading from the burial ground to the main street for which Touro left $5,000 for repair, the Town Council met on July 9, 1823 and resolved that "William Ennis Esq., a member of this Council, be and is hereby appointed and authorized to receive the Money from the Said Titus Wells Esq.", and this was to be deposited properly in some Bank in the town,
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"subject to future orders of this Council".12
The Council convened again two days later to consider the legacy for the synagogue; and, after due delibera- tion resolved, "that in the opinion of this Council, if the Honorable General Assembly shall accept of the trust expressed in said clause, it will be advisable that an act be passed empowering the General Treasurer to receive the Donation therein made from the Executor of said Will, to give proper discharge therefor, and to invest the same in any good Bank Stock or in the United States funds and that the certificates or evidences of such funded property or Stock be placed and remain in the Offices of the General Treasurer. - -
"It is also the opinion of this Council that in the act upon this subject the Town Council of this Town should be authorized from time to time, as occasion may require to appoint with the approbation of the General Assembly, a suitable person or persons to have the care and charge of said Synagogue, Buildings and Grounds, and to repair the same when necessary out of the pro- ceeds or Interest of said Fund, under the directions of said Council, and to account to said Council for their doings, all accounts if approved by said Council to be laid before the General Assembly for their considera- tion".13
These resolutions were put into effect after the City Clerk had met with William Hunter, Chairman of the Committee of the General Assembly, as he was instructed to do by the Council. Accordingly, at the June session of the Assembly, an Act was passed to secure and
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appropriate the "Touro Jewish Synagogue Fund" which provided that "the Town Council of the Town of Newport shall have authority" to appoint the proper agent to repair and keep up the synagogue properly, as well as "fix the compensation of said agent with the approbation of the General Assembly".
Not long after, the synagogue was repaired properly, and once again appeared as in the days before the Revolution. In due time, the building was painted; the grounds put in order and planted with grass; and the wooden fence put in shape.
As to the street on which the synagogue stood and for the repair of which Abraham Touro had left a special legacy, the Town Council of Newport invested the money, and at the meeting of April 17, 1824, appropria- ted $1300 from it for the street's repair. The work was soon started, and before long the street was the best paved in the city. At the Council Meeting of July 1824, the street, before this known as Griffin Street beginning at the old Jewish Burial Ground and extending as far as Spring Street, also Ann Street continuing from Griffiin Street and extending to Thames Street, were officially referred to as "Touro Street".14 About this time also the old Jew's Street was re-named Bellevue Avenue. The earliest maps of Newport of the nineteenth century show this change.
Stephen Gould was in charge of the keys to the synagogue and the cemetery. He guarded both places as shrines of the highest sanctity although without compensation. It was only after the Touro Fund
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Abraham Touro.
NOBLE MEMORIES
appropriated some money that he was partly repaid for his faithful services.
Through these gifts of Abraham Touro, the old Jewish cemetery, the synagogue and Touro Street were restored and improved. Before the century was half gone, these three landmarks became the most beautiful and best cared for spots in the city of Newport. Un- fortunately, the dream of Abraham Touro to have the Jewish religion revived in Newport was not realized so soon. But, had it not been for him only sadness would accompany the thought as to what might have happened to both the venerated "Abode of Life" and the "Holy Synagogue".
The synagogue at this time passed into the ownership of the New York Congregation Shearith Israel of which the majority of the heirs of the original owners were members. On September 29, 1826, Moses Lopez in writing to his "Esteemed Friend Stephen Gould" about various matters concerning property which he left behind in Newport when he moved to New York, speaks about the repairs to the synagogue which were in charge of the Council, and adds "that building is now considered as own'd at present by the Hebrew Society in this city and I am doubtful whether the Trustees of it will tamely submit to the forced agency of the Council to repair their own property without their consent".15
These remarks were occasioned by the fact that Stephen Gould who was in charge of the keys by author- ity of the New York Congregation, was not given remuneration by the Council even after money was
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available. In the same letter, Lopez writes that to avoid contention the New York trustees may consent to have the Newport Council repair the building, but, he adds : "I am determined to send for the keys and place them in their hands that they may do what they please with them, as you have obliged me long enough to wish your further services any longer for nothing in an affair where a whole Society is concerned".16
The serenity of the synagogue was unbroken except on the occasions, when members of the old Jewish community were brought to Newport to be reunited in death with their coreligionists according to their last requests. Thus the synagogue was opened for the funeral services of Moses Lopez, who died on April 1, 1830, at the great age of 86 in New York, and who was brought for interment in this city.
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