This collection contains financial and legal papers of Joseph Simon, including a mortgage, his will, and a bill of exchange. There is also a 1768 letter of introduction from Thomas Barton, rector of St. James Episcopal Church to William Johnson, First Baronet.
Admin/Biographical History
Joseph Simon was a successful trader and owned enormous tracts of land in the West. As the head of one of the earliest Jewish families in Lancaster County, he was also a religious leader in Lancaster,Pa. See Journal of the Lancaster County Historical Society. Volume 3, number 7 (1899), p. 165-172.
Jonah Davenport, an early eighteenth century Lancaster Indian trader, his son William Davenport, a Carlisle saddler, and grandson, Samuel Davenport, Trader General of the Tribes of Texas
"On the American frontier, there were men who always pushed the edge. These were often the Indian traders, solitary men who purchased great lots of manufactured goods, loaded them on trains of pack horses or mules and set out into the wilderness to trade with the Indians in exchange for skins and furs. Such a man was the Indian trader Jonah Davenport."