Twenty-six years before William Penn, the Quaker leader who founded Philadelphia set foot in the New World in 1682, a few Jews were trading with the Native Americans along the South River of the New Netherlands (later known as the Delaware River). The commerce-minded Dutch had wrested this territory from the Swedes; and young Hebrews with official permission to travel and barter ventured south from Dutch-held New Amsterdam to scout new sources of furs.

The Jewish community in New Amsterdam numbered some two dozen souls who had first arrived in the trading post on the Hudson River in the autumn of 1654. Exiles from Brazil, they had gained permission to stay in Manhattan from the Dutch West India Company, sponsor of the colony. In time, a handful of adventurers from Jewish communities in Holland, London and Dutch-held islands of the Caribbean made their way to New Amsterdam. Some moved on to Newport, Rhode Island; others probed the South River area for commercial possibilities.

The British took New Amsterdam from the Dutch in 1655 and named it New York. Jewish fears that they might be restricted under the British were soon put to rest when the King decreed that all persons who behaved themselves were free to roam the British colonies.

On March 4, 1681, King Charles II of England signed the patent that granted William Penn, leader of the Quakers, land between New York and Maryland, west of the Delaware River. Penn informed the King he wished to embark on a "Holy Experiment": he would establish a "Great Towne," which he would name Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love. William Penn planned his colony carefully, and when he followed his agents to America in 1682, he found the most promising city in the colonies already rising. With its excellent outlet to the sea, its location about halfway between the northern and southern British colonies, and its strong-willed, able-bodied inhabitants already at work with hammer and nail, Philadelphia's success seemed assured.

Jewish trading agents from New York took note of how quickly houses, shops and taverns rose in Philadelphia; how the harbor on the Delaware berthed an ever-increasing number of sailing vessels from the West Indies and Europe; how the number of market stalls with produce from Mennonite farms outside the town multiplied; how the Lenni Lenape Indians, pelts slung over their shoulders, clustered where William Penn held sway, confident of fair treatment. Nor did the clamor for nails, tools and other supplies by the Scotch-Irish immigrants anxious to move westward and clear wilderness for themselves fall on deaf ears.

The reports of the traders brought New York merchants to Philadelphia. One of them was the New York-born son of Moses Levy, established merchant, active in the Jewish community of New York. In 1737, Nathan Levy settled permanently in Philadelphia where he built a business of his own. He and his cousin, David Franks, formed the first important Jewish company there, Levy and Franks, importers and merchants.

Nathan Levy had lived in his new home in Philadelphia less than a year when one of his children died. He appealed to William Penn's son, Thomas Penn, Chief of the Proprietary Government of Pennsylvania for a private place in which to bury his child. A pious Jew, he sought hallowed ground in which to bury his child in accordance with Jewish law.

Nathan Levy was allowed to buy a small plot on the north side of Walnut Street between Eighth and Ninth Streets, to be enclosed with a "fence of boards ... an area characterized by woortleberry bushes and cows grazing in open fields." In 1740, Nathan Levy established a permanent cemetery on Spruce Street between Eighth and Ninth which Thomas Penn ordered to be held in trust as a burial place for Hebrews. Benjamin Eastburn, the official surveyor of the Province, drew the plan for the site.

Oral history tells us that a group of Jews banded together to hold religious services in a rented house sometime in the mid-1700's. This group met for prayer and was probably joined on special occasions and the High Holy Days by Jewish travelers from Lancaster and other nearby towns. Although they did not establish a congregation in the formal sense until the 1770's, Congregation Mikveh Israel dates its beginning to the establishment of the cemetery in 1740. The cemetery is the oldest tangible evidence of Jewish communal life in Philadelphia.

The cemetery in 1740 was a 30' x 30' plot. In 1752, Nathan Levy received an additional grant of land north of the first plot. In1765, John Penn granted Mathias Bush, another member of Mikveh Israel, an adjacent piece of ground for burial purposes. Thus the area that the cemetery embraces today was completed. If you click at right for the surveyor’s drawing, you will see that it covers an area fronting 60 ft. on the north side of Spruce Street and continuing 127 feet in depth to Manning Street. On the east side is Darien Street and Schell Street is on the west.

The appearance of the cemetery underwent several changes in the course of years. Nathan Levy enclosed it with a low brick wall in 1751 to protect the gravestones from "many unthinking people in the habit of setting marks and firing shots." Legend has it that when the British occupied Philadelphia in 1777, Redcoats would execute army deserters against the cemetery wall. In 1803 a new, higher wall replaced the one of colonial brick. Wrought-iron gates were added, and a sandstone marker erected telling of the cemetery's origin.

In 1791, Congregation Mikveh Israel appointed five trustees for the burial ground. A document of November 30, 1791, signed by David Franks reads:

"Whereas Nathan Levy..., — Merchant, did apply for two pieces of ground for a burial place for his family … this is to certify and declare that said application, which was in the name of the aforesaid Nathan Levy, was intended for the use of his family, and also for the use of the Hebrew Congregation (Mikveh Israel) of this City; it being intended at the time he applied for the same, to be a trust for a burial place for the internment of Hebrews."

This document records the right of Mikveh Israel to ownership of the Spruce Street Cemetery. It states the intent of Nathan Levy and Mathias Bush for the cemetery to be the resting place not only for their family members but for Jews in Philadelphia and beyond to be buried on sanctified ground in accordance with Jewish Law. Ownership was confirmed in 1828 by an act of the Pennsylvania Legislature.

Leaders of Mikveh Israel and their family members were buried in the cemetery on Spruce Street. Nathan Levy's tomb, dated 1753, bears the oldest decipherable inscription in the cemetery. The dates and the names, barely discernible on the weathered old tombstones, add dimensions today to the story of the emerging American nation.

Two plaques memorialize Haym Salomon, patriot and dedicated Jew. Born in Poland in 1740, he left Poland at the time of the Partition of 1772. He traveled in Europe for several years before immigrating to New York City around 1775. On the continent, he acquired mastery of European languages, currencies, and finance. In New York, he opened a brokerage and commission merchant’s business. He was jailed in New York by the British as a spy and for participating in other revolutionary activities of the Sons of Liberty.

Salomon escaped to Philadelphia with his family. There he joined fellow Jews who had fled the British occupation. He established himself as a broker, selling currencies and notes at a discount. Robert Morris, Superintendent of the Office of Finance appointed Haym Salomon as official broker. From 1781 until1784, in this capacity, Salomon converted bills of exchange and foreign government notes into spendable cash at a low rate of interest for the highest obtainable price. The money was used to meet the urgent needs of the army, navy, and government

Solomon was known as “The Good Jew.” In addition to his commitment to American Independence, Salomon devoted himself to Jewish affairs. A trustee of Congregation Mikveh Israel, he was the largest contributor to its first building, dedicated in 1782.