Series 44 - Jacob Harvey letters

20pp

Kerby A. Miller created his abstracts of the Harvey letters from the originals held in Trinity College Dublin Library [call numbers MSS 3640, MSS 3641, and MSS 3753].

Abstracts and transcribed extracts of letters written to Jacob Harvey from his relatives in Ireland between 1816 and 1848.
Per Kerby A. Miller: ‘Consists of letters from members of the Harvey family, a Quaker family of Limerick and Dublin, to Jacob Harvey (1797-1848). Jacob Harvey emigrated to New York at age 19, in May, 1816. He joined the firm of Abraham Bell & Co., merchants, Bell being also of Irish Quaker stock, and Jacob's father was a comfortably well-off import merchant in Limerick, and did a certain amount of trade with NYC in timber and grain. Jacob remained permanently in America, save for a visit to Ireland in 1822-3.
He became a well-known figure in mercantile circles in NYC, and took an active interest in public affairs, being especially interested in international questions affecting Great Britain and the US. Harvey was a very respected man among upper-class NYC.
In 1844, NYC directories list him as President of the Alliance Mutual Insurance Company, capitalized at $206,000, and located on 46 Wall Street. According to Crimmins, Harvey was a member of the Society of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick in NYC as early as 1830. In 1835 he was one of the stewards of the Society, elected with John Caldwell, Thomas Suffern, Robert Emmet, and Alexander Charters.
Harvey was also a good friend of Philip Hone, and frequently appears in Hone's diary as a member of the same clubs or at Hone's elite dinners. In 1835, after NYC had experienced one of its worst fires, Harvey was appointed, with other well-known citizens, to the Committee on relief, with the power to receive and distribute contributions. He married into the Hosack family, the father of which was a doctor.
Jacob's relatives were very liberal, they favored the abolition of slavery, and Catholic emancipation, although they were dismayed by the tactics and character of O'Connell, and later by the rebels of 1848. After continually promising every year that he would "return next spring," Jacob announced his intention of becoming an American citizen, married an American girl, and forswore his family's Quaker religion for Episcopalianism.’

A letter written by Jacob Harvey in 1839 is found in the Luther Bradish letters (P155/62/20/1). Abraham Bell features in other Irish Quaker letter collections such as the Greeves-O’Brien letters (P155/61/4) and the McLees family letters (P68/18).