A.J. Moses

South Carolina native Andrew Jackson Moses (1815-1877) worked as one of Sumter, South Carolina’s most successful merchants from around 1835 until his death in 1877. Moses traded in a wide variety of goods, including furniture, pianos, groceries, medicine, and carriages. By 1870, Moses owned a considerable amount of real estate, worth $40,000, and maintained a personal estate worth $5,000. In addition to his vast estate, Moses enslaved numerous individuals. According to the 1850 US Census Slave Schedule, Moses enslaved a total of 34 people that year. Besides his individual mercantile activities, Moses operated a general merchandise business with Perry Moses from 1848-1852. It remains unclear whether this Perry Moses was A. J. Moses’s son, Perry J. Moses (1844-1916), who would have only been four years old at the time the business opened, or perhaps a Perry Moses recorded as living in Charleston in 1840.