M. David
Merchant
c.1868-c.1903
Columbia, SC
FAMILIES: David
Polish native Mordecai David (1831-1913) immigrated to the United States in 1849. Around 1860, he married Letty Epstein (1845-1920), and for the first few years of Mordecai and Letty’s marriage, they lived in Richmond, Virginia and Charleston, South Carolina. Shortly after the American Civil War, they moved to Columbia where Mordecai operated numerous businesses including a dry goods store, a grocery, a clothing shop, and a jewelry store. He retired around 1903.
Main Image: Photograph of Mordecai David. Reprinted from Belinda and Richard Gergel’s In Pursuit of the Tree of Life: A History of the Early Jews of Columbia, South Carolina, and the Tree of Life Congregation (1996).