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Nathan Levy | |
|---|---|
| Born | February 18, 1704 London, England |
| Died | December 1753 (aged 49) |
Resting place | Mikveh Israel Cemetery, Philadelphia |
| Occupation | Merchant |
| Known for | Founder of Philadelphia's first Jewish cemetery; co-founder of Levy & Franks |
| Parent | Moses Raphael Levy |
| Relatives | Abigail Franks (sister) Benjamin Levy, Samson Levy (half-brothers) David Franks (nephew and business partner) |
Nathan Levy (February 18, 1704 – December 1753) was a London-born Jewish merchant in colonial Philadelphia, regarded as the founder of the city's Jewish community. With his nephew David Franks he founded Levy & Franks, the first Jewish business house in Philadelphia, and in 1740 he obtained the land for the city's first Jewish cemetery, now the Mikveh Israel Cemetery.
Levy was born in London in 1704, the son of the merchant Moses Raphael Levy, and came to New York with his family as a child. His older sister Bilhah Abigail married the merchant Jacob Franks. A merchant named Nathan Levy was a member of New York's Congregation Shearith Israel in 1730.
Levy moved to Philadelphia, where Jewish families were recorded by the 1730s. There he went into the general commission business with his nephew David Franks, Jacob and Abigail's son, under the name Levy & Franks; it was the first Jewish business house in the city, and Levy remained in it until his death.
After the death of one of his children in 1738, Levy applied to the proprietors of Pennsylvania for a burial plot for his family. On September 25, 1740, he received a grant of a plot thirty feet square on Spruce Street near Ninth Street, and on June 27, 1752, he obtained the adjoining lot. Levy evidently intended the ground to serve Philadelphia's Jews generally rather than his family alone, and it became known as the "Jews' burying-ground." It later passed to Congregation Mikveh Israel.
A long-standing tradition holds that the Liberty Bell was brought from England to Philadelphia in 1752 aboard the Myrtilla, a ship belonging to Levy.
Levy died in Philadelphia in December 1753; a contemporary report described him as an "eminent merchant" who died of an apoplectic fit. He was buried in the cemetery he had founded.
His daughter Rachel married his half-brother Benjamin Levy.