I represent Samuel Israel. I was one of the first identified Jews to arrive in the British colony of West Florida, sometime between 1763 and 1765. I and a few other Jewish merchants in the province bought property and opened stores. We provided a wide range of goods to the British military and to civilian colonists, even trading with other Southern colonies. There were never quite enough of us to form a religious community of any kind; like many settlers we moved to wherever the economy seemed to be growing – and after a while, that wasn’t Pensacola. In February 1765, I was granted Lot No. 44, on Mansfield Street at York (today, Zaragoza Street at Florida Blanca) and by that time I was already considered a resident of Mobile. This property changed hands several times and ended up in the hands of the elder Thomas Commyns in 1784.
Sources: 9, 39, 116