A.J. Moses

Merchant
c.1835-1877


Sumter, SC

FAMILIES: 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.

Main Image: A.J. Moses, c.1850. Image from https://www.ancestry.com/mediaui-viewer/collection/1030/tree/106151360/person/380048846239/media/21c51959-dee6-4e38-8873-a5b50bd1e280?_phsrc=SPQ2305&_phstart=successSource

 

Above Image: A.J. Moses advertisement. Reprinted from The Sumter Banner, March 31, 1847.

 

Above Image: A.J. Moses advertisement. Reprinted from The Sumter Banner, May 16, 1855.

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
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Charleston, SC 29424
Phone: 843 953 3918