Isaac Harby family papers

Isaac Harby (1788-1828) was born in Charleston, South Carolina, on November 9, 1788, to auctioneer Solomon Harby (1762-1805) and Rebecca Moses (1768-1854). In 1805, Harby enrolled at the College of Charleston but left before graduating to pursue an apprenticeship at the law office of Langdon Cheves. After abandoning his legal apprenticeship, he opened Harby’s Academy, a private academy that, despite other professional pursuits, remained the most reliable source of income throughout his life. In 1807, Harby marked the start of his career in journalism by launching The Quiver, his first venture in print and likely the first literary magazine produced by an American Jew. In 1810, Harby married Rachael Mordecai (1781-1827), who bore nine children, three of whom died in infancy. From 1814 to 1817, Harby owned and edited the Charleston Gazette and Mercantile Advisor, which he renamed the Southern Patriot and Commercial Advertiser. From 1821 to 1823, he edited Charleston’s City Gazette and regularly contributed to the Charleston Mercury and other publications. During these years, Harby wrote at least three plays: Alexander Severus (c. 1808), The Gordian Knot (1810), and Alberti (1819). In 1822, he made an unsuccessful run for the South Carolina General Assembly. In 1824, two Charleston newspapers published Harby’s “The Presidency,” a series of political essays supporting the presidential candidacy of Andrew Jackson. At the same time, he was deeply involved in establishing the Reformed Society of Israelites, the first organized expression of Jewish religious reform in North America. He became the society’s most prominent spokesperson and, in 1825, on the group’s first anniversary, delivered A Discourse…for promoting true principles of Judaism according to its purity and spirit. In 1827, he served as president of the society and, with the assistance of David N. Carvalho and Abraham Moïse, composed what is now recognized as the first reform prayer book written in America. In 1828, the year after his wife’s death, Harby moved to New York, contributing to the New York Evening Post and the New York Mirror. He died of typhoid fever on December 14, 1828, leaving his six children in the care of his sister, Caroline de Litchfield Harby, and was buried in Congregation Shearith Israel’s second cemetery on 11th Street in Manhattan.

George W. Harby (1797-1862) was born in Charleston, South Carolina, on October 12, 1797. The younger brother of Isaac Harby, he was known as an educator and author of several plays, Including Tutoona, or the Indian Girl (1835) and Nick of the Woods (1837).

Jack (Jacob) de la Motta Harby (1848-1916) was born in Galveston, Texas, on March 29, 1848, and in 1869 married Lee (Leah) Cohen Harby (1849-1918). Lee was born in Charleston, South Carolina, on September 7, 1849, to Marx E. Cohen and Armida Harby, and was the granddaughter of Isaac Harby on her mother’s side. Jack and Lee C. Harby settled in Galveston, spending time also in Houston, New York, and Charleston. She published numerous essays, short stories and poems in periodicals such as Godey’s Magazine, Ladies Home Journal, and Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly Newspaper, writing on topics including Texas, plantation life, Jewish holidays and traditions, Jewish women, and the South Carolina Inter-State and West Indian Exposition. An active member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Rebecca Motte Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, she successfully led the fight to preserve Charleston’s Old Exchange Building and is commemorated on a historic plaque on its north façade.

Hal W. Harby (1886-1954) was born in Sumter, South Carolina, on July 9, 1886 to Henry J. Harby and Adeline Emanuel. Hal W. Harby was the great-grandson of Isaac Harby through his father’s mother, Octavia Harby Moses.