Isaac Mendes Seixas

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Isaac Mendes Seixas

Birthdate:
Birthplace: Lisbon, Lisbon District, Portugal
Death: between November 03, 1781 and November 03, 1781 (72)
Newport, Newport, Rhode Island, United States
Immediate Family:

Son of Abraham Mendes Seixas and Abigail Seixas
Husband of Unkn. Mendes Seixas and Rachel Franks Seixas
Father of Abraham Seixas; Abigail Judah; Moses Mendes Mendes; Rev. Gershom Mendes Seixas; Benjamin Mendes Seixas and 4 others
Brother of Judith Mendes and Rebecca (Ribca) Mendes Seixas

Occupation: Founder of the American branch of the Seixas family, who was at various times a merchant in New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Jersey; endenized NY by 1738
Managed by: Nate Hoffman
Last Updated:

About Isaac Mendes Seixas

Since Isaac is described in his father Abraham's 1738 will as "now a single man" and since Abraham leaves him "only £50 for reasons known to myself," I am led to believe that Isaac may have divorced a first wife against the will of the family. Isaac would not be entitled to any inheritance, except for the £30 year from his brothers-in-law, unless he remarried. -Judith

In 1738 (age 30) (the year of his father's death) Isaac, hoping to profit from Caribbean trade, set sail for the West Indies. According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, Isaac came to the U.S. via Barbados, settling in NY. During the Revolution, the Seixas clan fled from the British in NY (1776) and settled in Stratford, CT. Isaac later moved to Newport, RI.

Caused an uproar in New York's Sephardic elite by marring an Askenazi Jew. See Leo Hershkowitz & Isidore S. Meyer, eds., Letters of the Franks Family (1733-1748): The Lee Max Friedman Collection of American Jewish Colonial Correspondence (Waltham, Mass.: American Jewish Historical Soc.), pp. 75-76.

Issac did not invite any of his relatives to the wedding and his Uncle Rodrigo Pacheco (Benjamin Mendes) was "displeased" according to abigail Levy Franks in a letter to her son Naphtali, half sister to Rachel.

"Find A Grave Index," database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVKF-GXK1 : 30 May 2020), Isaac Mendes Seixas, 1780; Burial, , ; citing record ID , Find a Grave, http://www.findagrave.com.

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Isaac Mendes Seixas's Timeline

1709
September 5, 1709
Lisbon, Lisbon District, Portugal
1741
November 1741
New York, New York, United States
1742
November 17, 1742
New York, British Colonial America
1742
1744
March 28, 1744
New York, New York, United States
1746
January 14, 1746
New York, New York, United States
1747
January 17, 1747
Newport, Newport, Rhode Island Colony, United States
1750
March 14, 1750
New York, NY, United States
1752
November 24, 1752
Stratford, CT, United States