Series I. Uriah Hendricks Papers (1758-1828), 1755-1798

The series includes material on the career and personal life of Uriah Hendricks, who established a successful import trade with England and the West Indies. His correspondence and business records reflect association with some of the leading English exporters of copper, lead, and spelter, including Pieschell and Brogden and John F. Freeman and Company. He also dealt with other prominent London merchants including the Oppenheim family, into which his sister had married. In the West Indies, his contacts included such notable merchants as Isaac Gabay, David P. Mendez, and the De Leon family. The series contains loose correspondence, inventories, indentures, letterbooks, ledgers, and account books, marriage contracts, and estate records.

Uriah Hendricks (1737-1798) came to New York from London in 1755 to set up as a shopkeeper. His father, Aaron Hendricks, was a prominent London merchant with connections both in England and the colonies. Through his connections, and his own good business sense, Uriah was able to expand fairly quickly from a small-time dry goods shopkeeper to a successful merchant importer involved in the carrying trade with England and the West Indies. On the road to making his fortune, Uriah married Eve Esther Gomez, daughter of a second-generation colonial, in 1762. Together the couple had eleven children, eight of whom survived to adulthood. Uriah took an active role in the Jewish community in New York. He was a member and President of synagogue Shearith Israel and a regular contributor to charity and cemetery funds. A devoted father, he made certain his children learned Hebrew and received a proper Jewish education. He was a fixture in the economic life of the city as well, becoming one of the richest merchants in New York while still a young man. Wishing to maintain the safety of his family and his business, Uriah was not as active in the political life of the city or the country, but did profit by supplying the military during both the French and Indian War and the Revolutionary War.