Isaiah Moses
Grocer, merchant, and planter
German-born Isaiah Moses (1772–1857) lived here. In 1807, he married Rebecca Philips (1792–1888), the daughter of Jacob and Hannah Isaacs Philips, and seven years later acquired The Oaks plantation, 794 acres of land in Goose Creek. Between 1809 and 1845, he bought twenty-nine slaves and sold an equal number in fourteen different transactions. During the time Moses owned The Oaks, the family kept a house and business in town. In 1837, for example, Rebecca Moses was keeping a dry goods store on King Street. A religious traditionalist, Isaiah was a member of Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim’s conservative 1820 adjunta but signed the congregation’s conciliatory 1836 constitution that tried to bridge the differences between reformers and traditionalists. In the 1840s, he left KKBE and became a trustee of the more orthodox Shearit Israel under the leadership of his son-in-law, hazan Jacob Rosenfeld.
Isaiah Moses (1772–1857)
Portrait by Theodore Sidney Moïse (1808–1885), ca. 1835. Courtesy of Doug Alexander.
Rebecca Phillips Moses (Mrs. Isaiah Moses) (1792–1872)
Portrait by C. W. Uhl, 1843. Courtesy of Judith Alexander Weil Shanks.
Avenue at The Oaks, Goose Creek,
Pastel by Elizabeth O'Neill Verner, ca. 1940. Image courtesy of the Gibbes Museum of Art/Carolina Art Association.
Plat of The Oaks, Goose Creek, SC, 1817
Based on a survey by William Brailsford, 1817. From the collections of the South Carolina Historical Society.