Mordecai Sheftall Cemetery Trustees Records

In 1773 Mordecai Sheftall, a leader among the Jews of Savannah, Georgia, established a second burial site specifically for the Jewish community. The first public Jewish burial ground, located on the Commons, was allotted to the Jewish community by General James E. Oglethorpe shortly after settlement of the colony. By the 1760s, this cemetery was full.

In 1762, Sheftall was granted five acres of land by King George III. Out of this grant, he conveyed one and half acres of Garden Lot 22 through a Trust Indenture on August 2, 1773. The indenture placed the property in the hands of a group of trustees who would oversee its care and continued use as a cemetery. The original trustees were selected by Sheftall and included Philip Minis, Levi Sheftall, Isaac D'Acosta, Joshua Hart, Abraham Hart, Joseph Gomperts, Sampson Simpson, Solomon Simpson, Isaac Har, and Jacob Rivera. This group represented prominent Jewish community leaders of the time and all were friends of Sheftall's. The property had already been used as a burial ground since as early as 1769. The local Jewish congregation built a wall was built to surround the property and general burials continued until the mid1850s.

By 1871, all of the original trustees were deceased and the cemetery had fallen into disrepair. After a petition by Congregation Mickve Israel, the Chatham County Superior Court appointed successor trustees. In 1893, the trustees filed a petition with the Superior Court to empower them to rent, lease or sell any part of the vacant land adjoining the cemetery for the purpose of funding the continued care of the cemetery. In 1902 they sold land which enabled them to enter into an agreement with Congregation Mickve Israel to complete the first Mordecai Sheftall Memorial Building.

For more information on the Mordecai Sheftall Cemetery and the individuals involved in its establishment and care, as well as those interred within its bounds please see B. H. Levy's Savannah's Old Jewish Community Cemeteries (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1983).