Americana - Solomon Etting Early American Document.

Americana - Solomon Etting Early American Document.

Document dated July 20, 1790. Written to Jonathan Bayard Smith, Grandmaster of Lodge 43. F.A.M.

Noting that Brother Lewis Farmer has been unanimously chosen as Representative of their Lodge to appear at the Quarterly Communication.

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Solomon Etting (1764–1847), businessman, political figure, and Jewish civic rights leader, also born in York, Pa., became a shoḥet at the age of 18, the first American Jew to serve in this capacity. At first a hardware storekeeper, Solomon subsequently became a banker, a shipper, a founder of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and an important businessman. He was prominent in the Baltimore Republican Society, a Jeffersonian political club. He was a leader in the defense of Baltimore against the British in the War of 1812, during which his 18-year-old son Samuel was wounded in the battle at nearby Fort McHenry. Etting was a "manager" of the Maryland State Colonization Society, which sought to promote the resettlement of blacks in Africa. Etting was active in the Baltimore German Society and served as its vice president from 1820 to 1840. Although he was not involved in any Jewish organization in Baltimore, he supported the synagogue of his youth, Mikveh Israel, in Philadelphia. In 1801 he purchased land for a Jewish cemetery in Baltimore. He also led in the struggle for Jewish civic rights, opposing the Maryland law requiring of officeholders a Christian oath. As early as 1797 he appealed to the State Legislature on behalf of a "sect of people called Jews, deprived of invaluable rights of citizenship and praying to be placed on the same footing as other good citizens." This petition initiated a three-decade struggle, which ended successfully in 1826. Soon thereafter, Etting served as a Baltimore councilman. Solomon Etting's second wife was the daughter of the prominent leader Barnard Gratz.

Jonathan Bayard Smith (1742-1812) was a signatory to the Articles of Confederation on behalf of Pennsylvania at the Continental Congress to which he was a delegate.