I. D. Mordecai

Isaac D. Mordecai (1805-1864) was born in Charleston to David Cohen (1784-1818) and Reinah Abrahams Mordecai (1784-1853). His older brother, Moses Cohen Mordecai (1804-1888), ran a successful import business in Charleston and eventually became the port city’s most well-regarded Jewish merchant.

In the 1840s, Mordecai moved to Columbia with a group of family members, including his mother and sister Cordelia (1815-1893). There, he opened a dry goods store specializing in cigars, tobacco, and liquor. In 1859, he moved his storefront to 128 Richardson Street (now on the 1500 block of Main Street), and the by the following year was listed in the US Census as enslaving four people: two boys—ages three and 13—and two adults, a forty-year-old woman and a sixty-year-old man.

While in Columbia, Isaac served as the director of the Bank of South Carolina and participated in both the Richland Lodge No. 39 and the Hebrew Benevolent Society. Upon his death in 1864, Mordecai was buried in Charleston near his parents.