Barshay’s Department Store

Merchant
1905-1999

100 S. Main Street
Summerville, SC

FAMILIES: Barshay, Loeb, Milton, and Painter

Brothers Marcus Barshay (1872-1950) and Manuel Barshay (1870-1958) immigrated from Riga, Latvia, in 1891 to Orangeburg, where they both worked as dry goods merchants. Manuel later moved to Charleston. Marcus opened M. Barshay, Dry Goods, in Orangeburg in 1897 and married Lena Banov Barshay (1880-1953) in 1901. Marcus and Lena moved to Summerville and opened a second store, which sold men’s clothing, in the town square in 1905. By 1910 he expanded the Summerville business to include women’s clothing and moved into a space on the square formerly occupied by Solomon Mirmow. Marcus’s two oldest sons, Aaron Milton (1902-1979) and Samuel Loeb(1908-1980), joined the business in the 1920s and took over both stores after his death in 1950. The Barshays sold the business to Hardie Painter in 1973, and it closed in 1999.

The Jewish Merchant Project is supported by the generosity of the Henry & Sylvia Yaschik Foundation and the Stanley B. Farbstein Endowment at the Coastal Community Foundation.

JHSSC Office
Sylvia Vlosky Yaschik Jewish Studies Center
96 Wentworth Street
Charleston, SC 29424
Phone: 843 953 3918