Founding Mother: Abigail Minis

Mickve Israel Synagogue which Abigail Minis was influential

The date was July 11, 1733. A date that is important in the Savannah Jewish community. It was the day that the William and Sara ships brought the first group of Jews to Savannah. Abigail Minis was on one of those ships with her husband and two daughters.The date was July 11, 1733. A date that is important in the Savannah Jewish community. It was the day that the William and Sara ships brought the first group of Jews to Savannah. Abigail Minis was on one of those ships with her husband and two daughters. They traveled with forty other Jews the largest group of Jews to land in North America in Colonial days. It had been only six months after Gen. James Oglethorpe had landed with the first settlers.

In the fertile ground of the new colony between 1733 and 1757she gave birth to seven more children. Life was looking grand until her husband died and left her a widow with eight children to support at the age of fifty-six. She did not know and would never learn to speak English well and struggled to sign her name. This would seem like a recipe for disaster. But Abigail would become one of the great ‘businessmen’ of Georgia.

Her husband left her a 1,000 acre estate to oversee. She would expand this property and develop other entrepreneurial businesses. She would maneuver the treacherous ground of the Revolutionary War in Savannah and survive. In 1763, she applied for a license to operate a tavern. She and her five unmarried daughters conducted this business until 1779. The Minis tavern would become the place for the elite of Savannah to meet. George Washington would make a stop there. It should also be mentioned that she never remarried and her daughters would never marry. This would show that they had confidence in their ability to care for themselves without a male present.

Abigail would remain an important fixture in the Jewish community. She was also a founding member of what is now the historic Congregation Mickve Israel. The synagogue is the third oldest in the United States. Her descendants have been connected with the Savannah Jewish community and Mickve Israel for about 260 years.

She supported the Patriots.  She provided provisions for American and French soldiers during the Siege of Savannah in 1779.  The Americans and French failed to retake Savannah from the British. This led to attempts by Loyalists to confiscate her property. Realizing she was no longer wanted by the British who were still in control of Savannah she petitioned the governor for safe passage to Charleston. She was granted safe passage but in somewhat of a coup considering her position she arranged for protection of her Savannah property for the remainder of the war. Before she left Savannah she brought her friend and fellow patriot Mordecai Sheftall food in prison where he was a prisoner of the British. Sheftall served as a Colonel in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War and was the highest ranking Jewish officer of the Colonial forces.

 In 1783, Abigail Minis returned to Savannah and resumed her business activities. Minis bought land constantly. She owned several garden lots in town, at least 7 farm plots outside the city and 5 hundred acres of pine land on Sapelo Island. In the end here estate would have over 2,000 acres. She would remain active in the family businesses until her death on October 11, 1794, at age ninety-three. She was buried in the Sheftall Cemetary which was once found at Oglethorpe and Bull Streets. Today only a small monument marks hers and other Jews who were buried in the now long gone cemetery.  Yet Abigail was one of the founding mothers of our state.
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Memorial for Jewish burial ground in which Abigail Minis was buried