It’s not very often we at the American Jewish Historical Society talk about pork. A new collection currently being processed from the Lewis family—related to Commodore Uriah Phillips Levy (1792-1862) and Captain Jonas Phillips Levy (1807-1883)—recently came to our attention, and we could not pass up the opportunity to share one of the documents with you. The letter, written by Jonas, not only concerns a very old bit of traif but also serves as an excellent example of how one missive can unlock multiple pathways of information.
Jonas Phillips Levy was the brother of Uriah, and both were born and raised in Philadelphia. Their grandfather was American Revolution patriot Jonas Phillips, a founder of Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia who served in the Philadelphia Militia under Colonel William Bradford. Uriah was the first Jewish person to reach the highest levels of the United States Navy during his lifetime, was the driving force that ended flogging in the Navy, and saved Thomas Jefferson’s estate, Monticello. His brother Jonas served in the military, but was more of a privateer, merchant, and businessman, over his lifetime living in Mexico, New York, and Wilmington, North Carolina. After Uriah died in 1862, Jonas’ son, Congressman Jefferson Monroe Levy, would eventually own Monticello. The estate was held by the Levy family from 1834 to 1923, with a brief break during the Civil War.
Jonas was traveling to Mexico to attend to some business interests when the Civil War broke out causing him to stop in Wilmington, NC, where he would remain for the duration of the war. There, his business interests coincided with the Confederate Army. After the war, Jonas spoke sparingly of his time in the South but penned a letter regarding an American Revolution-era object of… a petrified ham.
Discussion of food during the American Revolution can be a hot topic for historians, as the Continental Army was desperate during war to feed its Continental and Militia soldiers. During the height of the war, especially when the British overcame American forces after Valley Forge, PA, General Washington and the Continental government were unable to pay farmers and merchants with cold, hard cash (or shillings). Washington instituted a system of “promissory notes.” These notes, as highlighted from the American Jewish Historical Society’s Mordecai Sheftall (1735-1797) papers, were used as promises to pay for supplies delivered to the troops. The merchant, or Commissioner, would lay out his own funds to pay for supplies, deliver them, and create a provision return receipt… or promissory note… for the merchandise.
Mordecai was born in Savannah, Georgia to Jewish parents who settled in the colony in 1733. Sheftall was born and raised in an Ashkenazi household and would grow up like many in the colonies, to pledge allegiance to the fledgling United States. As a merchant and landowner known in the community, Sheftall was appointed as Deputy Commissary of Issues in April 1778. It was his duty to source and distribute food to hungry Continental soldiers. Since the government did not have a ready supply of cash or gold or silver on hand, promissory notes were issued. Commissioners would source the food, giving the produce to the commanding officer in most cases. On the front would be noted who acquired the items, which battalion or regiment, what division, and for how many people; on the reverse was noted the items given along with a signature (or X if the person was unable to write their name) from those who received the supplies. Sheftall could then use these provision returns to present to the Continental government for repayment. However, during and after the war, these promises of payment were unable to be fully and readily paid as the new United States coffers were bare by the time the Americans finally won the war in 1784.
In November 1778, Savannah fell to the British. In December, Sheftall and his son, were captured outside of Savannah after attempting to swim a river. Sheftall fils could not swim, so both father and son surrendered and were imprisoned by the British. Mordecai carried the promissory notes with him, and these notes eventually made their way to the AJHS through A.S.W. Rosenbach in 1927, and first processed by the AJHS through the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1941. The collection was reorganized, conserved, and digitized through a Save America’s Treasures grant in 2008.
This leads us to our “extraordinary relick,” as noted by Jonas, of a petrified ham. The primary food staples for the Continental Army were beef, pork, and salt fish, with some produce and rice (and lots of rum in some cases). Soldiers guarded their supplies but at times if any army is overrun, they may dump their supplies from being captured by enemies and used for the opposing army’s benefit.
In 1877, Jonas drafted a letter, addressed to “Sir” and listed two names at the bottom of the letter, William R. Martin, and Smith Ely, the Mayor of New York from 1877-1878. Mayor Ely was crossed out and replaced with Martin, who was then the President of the New York City Parks Department. Jonas mentions a “New City Museum at the Central Park” of which we investigated 4 possible options:
- New York Historical Society, which however did not move to its current location on Central Park West and 81st street until 1908.
- The American Museum of Natural History at Central Park West between 77th and 80th streets, our most likely candidate as it opened in 1877.
- The Museum of the City of New York, located on the city’s East side at 106th and 5th Avenue at Central Park, but not built until 1923.
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art, another likely contender, located first on 5th Avenue near 53rd Street which opened at 1872. It moved into its current building on the perimeter of Central Park at 5th Avenue between 80th to 84th Streets in 1880.
Jonas came by this petrified ham through a man named William Shepard Ashe (who he addresses as “Ash”). Ashe was born in Rocky Point, NC, with a career in pre-Civil War politics, including representing North Carolina in Congress as a Southern Democrat from 1849-1855. In 1854, he became the head of the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad. The W&W RR operated from 1855-1900 though the line began as the Wilmington and Raleigh Railroad from its original charter in 1834. Jonas knew Ashe, though it is unknown when or how he met him. We do know that Ashe was killed in a handrail train accident on September 14, 1862, and Jonas did not come into possession of the ham until 1866. Jonas noted that he bought the ham from “its owner” so presumably, Ashe told Jonas the story of the ham prior to his death, and Jonas bought it from whomever owned it after Ashe died.
According to Jonas’s letter, the ham was found during the excavation of the railroad, near the River Cape Fear on the Crossing Rock Creek, outside the city limits of Wilmington. Jonas writes that the ham “must have been placed there by the North Carolina Troops in the year 1775, as there they had their Camp.” The Continental and British Armies fought at least two named battles in the area that could be the site of the excavation that also appear near the W&W RR line: Moore’s Creek Bridge Battle (February 1776) and the Battle of Rockfish (August 1781). However, Jonas’s reference to Captain Banastre Tarleton, a young, brash British officer who acquired the nickname of “Bloody Ban” by the Continental Army, does not coincide with the year 1775. Tarleton did not sail to the rebel colonies until December 1775, and he participated in the capture of Continental Army General Charles Lee in Camden, South Carolina in December 1776. Tarleton was fighting in Charleston, South Carolina from 1776 to 1780, when he overcame the Continental Army’s Colonel Abraham Buford near the North Carolina border. Of course, skirmishes and battles occurred throughout the area, and Tarleton’s troops could have pushed up past Wilmington in raids after 1776. In March 1776, there was also a battle at “Cross Creek” after the Moore’s Creek Bridge fight, which, according to the website, North Carolina in the American Revolution, describes as “aka Cochrane’s Mill. Loyalist Capt. Thomas Recie capture Col. William Graham and his Tryon County Militia resting after the battle of Moore’s Creek Bridge.” However, Cross Creek is located closer to Fayetteville, NC on the Cape Fear River, as opposed to the Cape Fear River Estuary, nor is it on the W&W RR line. The site also notes that for three weeks after the Cross Creek skirmish, British foraging troops attacked locals. Food supplies could have been dumped in many areas between the battles and skirmishes in the North Carolina wilderness along the Cape Fear River between 1775 and 1776.
As to the petrified ham itself, the pork may have been Westphalia ham, a German method of brining and aging ham that Thomas Jefferson wrote about on a visit to Germany in 1788. The ham may have been brined or salt-rubbed simply as a preservative. There are sadly no clues in Jonas’s letter as to the shape, size, texture of the petrified ham. This ham, Jonas says, was lost in a stretch of land or water eventually carved out to build the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad, near “Crossing Rock Creek” and the Cape Fear River. It could possibly have been lost in the Cape Fear Estuary that runs between Wilmington and the Atlantic Ocean, which exchanges fresh water and sea water, which would have further preserved the ham turning it into rock.
The correspondence and annual reports of the W&W RR from 1861-1865 are available online but searches for “ham,” “petrified,” or “petrified ham” were not found. Correspondence only up to William Ashe’s death were investigated. The railroad was heavily used by Confederate troops during the Civil War, and while someone did take great pains to preserve the ham, the W&W RR certainly had other issues to deal with. The present whereabouts of the petrified ham relic are currently unknown.
Captain Jonas Phillps Levy’s letter serves as a wonderful example of a document with many levels of discovery, somewhat like an onion. Peel back one layer, and another layer reveals itself, and leaves more questions unanswered. Jonas Phillip Levy’s letter may be found in collection P-1059, which is currently being processed.
No. 108 E. 40th Street
New York December 19, 1877
Sir:
I am in possession of an Extraordinary [Relick] of the War of 1775—being a petrified Ham its history as follows:
During my Residence in Wilmington North Carolina, I accidently fell in with a petrified Ham, and purchased it from its owner, for a curiosity, which induced me to make some enquiries and examination into its character, and from when [it came] and how this astonishing peice [sic] of Pork Should become petrified and, turned into this solid [peice] of Rock for such it is. It has been in my possession since 1866.
The Hon Wm. Ash, late President of the [Wilmington&Weldan] Railroad Co., of North Carolina, before his death, informed me that when they first excavated the Road Bed in Crossing Rock Creek, on the limits of the city of Wilmington N.C. for that Road they excavated Some two or three Petrified Hams, and the [onley] way to account for them, they must have been placed there by the North Carolina Troops in the year 1775, as there they had their Camp, and a [Battel] was fought with the British Troops then under the command of Captain [Tarletan]: the Americans threw their Surplus provisions in the creek and the River Cape Fear, to prevent them from falling into the Hands of their [Enemys], this being part of them:
It is my desire to aid our City Public Institutions, there I offer this [Relick] to the be [place] as a permanent Exhibition and gift to our New City Museum at the Central Park.
I have the honor
To subscribe myself.
Yours truly
Jonas P. Levy
Wm. R. Martin,
[?]This [?]Mayor ElyOf the City of New York
Sources
Bright, D. L. (2002, January 1). NP, RR 9/17/1862. Confederate Railroads. Retrieved December 17, 2024, from https://www.csa-railroads.com/Essays/Orignial%20Docs/NP/RR/NP,_RR_9-17-62.htm
Gibbons Backus, P. (2024, January 23). Getting Food in the Continental Army. Retrieved December 17, 2024, from https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/getting-food-continental-army
Jortner, A. (2024, October 23). A Promised Land: Jewish Patriots, the American Revolution, and the Birth of Religious Freedom. The American Revolution Institute. Retrieved December 17, 2024, from https://www.americanrevolutioninstitute.org/video/a-promised-land-jewish-patriots-the-american-revolution-and-the-birth-of-religious-freedom/
Lewis, J. (2004, January 1). The Known Battles & Skirmishes in North Carolina. The American Revolution in North Carolina. Retrieved December 17, 2024, from https://www.carolana.com/NC/Revolution/NC_Revolutionary_War_Known_Battles_Skirmishes.htm
National Park Service (2023, August 23). Banastre Tarleton. Retrieved December 17, 2024, from https://www.nps.gov/people/banastre-tarleton.htm
[PBS]. (1995, January 22). Mordecai Shefthall – Colonial Hero [Video]. PBS Georgia Stories. https://www.pbs.org/video/georgia-stories-mordecai-shefthall-colonial-hero/
Richardson, S. (2018, August 12). North Carolina and the American Revolution: Battles and Skirmishes. Retrieved December 17, 2024, from https://theclio.com/tour/1810/2
