Jacob Phoenix

From The Peopling of New York City

Jacob Phoenix is a prime example of an ever elusive immigrant. After searching through the city directories, online genealogical databases, microform, and microfilm sections I unable to find any trace of Jacob Phoenix. His name was not uncommon however. Jacob Phoenix shared the same name as two other individuals in 1786. One man was Philip Taylor Phoenix, who lived on 1 Augustus drive and Daniel Phoenix, a merchant and city treasurer, who lived on 32 Water drive. Daniel Phoenix also had a short entry under the section entitled Officers for the city and county of New York, where he is further listed as a treasurer and chamberlain in the New York city directory.^[1]

The trail continued to grow colder and colder with each successive city directory I used. I took a break from the directories and proceeded to search the online genealogical databases, like Ancestry.com, but found nothing that matched the years in which Jacob Phoenix would have lived. The earliest matched entries dated well into the 1900s - which would mean Jacob Phoenix would have to have been almost 200 years old! At that point I continued to the microform section to see if he was involved in any other trades as a merchant that would leave traces of his business practices - ads, sales, notices, etc. Yet, nothing turned up.

I am confident in concluding that Mr. Jacob Phoenix has also disappeared from the historical record. In order to account for Jill Lepore's reference to Phoenix as a slave trade ship captain who owned slaves involved in the conspiracy of 1741 and, as a merchant, was himself involved in the Caribbean slave trade which experienced the slave revolts in Antigua, I can only assume that his mention is not a major one (Lepore 2006, 54).^[2] According to Lepore's references Jacob Phoenix's name was strung together with other possibly more influential slave captains at the time in a memoir written by Lewis Morris, Jr (Lepore 2006, 293). Unfortunately I was unable to obtain a copy of these memoirs which apparently happen to be the only written record of Jacob Phoenix available to us.

References

1. ↑ Franks, David, compiled 1786. New York: H.J. Sachs and Company Real Estate.
2. ↑ Lepore, Jill. 2006. New York Burning. New York: Vintage Books.