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Michael Feldberg
The Kings of Copper
http://www.jewishworldreview.com |
The Hendricks family of New York helped lay the
foundation for the Industrial Revolution in America. Their
pioneering production of copper was vital to the growth
of the American economy and the nation's military might.
When the company closed in 1938, Hendricks Brothers
was the oldest continuous privately held Jewish family
business in the United States.
Uriah Hendricks, the patriarch of the family, was born in
Amsterdam, Holland in 1737 and emigrated from London
to New York City in 1755. In New York, he opened a dry
goods store and became an active member, and
eventually parnas, or president, of Shearith Israel, the
Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue. The congregation
served as the unifying institution of the New York Jewish
community, which numbered about 200 people. In 1764,
Hendricks established a metals business, importing copper
and brass from England, which discouraged manufacture
of these commodities in the American colonies. On his
death, Uriah's only son Harmon took over the metals
importing company, as well as the family role in leading
Shearith Israel, where he too served as parnas from 1824
to 1827.
Recognizing that the United States could never attain
true independence so long as it was dependent on
overseas production of essential products such as
copper, Harmon Hendricks helped transform the United
States from an importer to a manufacturer of copper. In
1812, during the American war with England, Hendricks
and his brother-in-law Solomon Isaacs built one of the
nation's first successful copper rolling mills in Soho, New
Jersey. Historian Maxwell Whiteman observed that
Hendricks became "his own metallurgist at a time when
the secrets of the science of refining metals were
jealously guarded by the English." Because of his skill,
Hendricks made possible the use of copper rather than
iron in the manufacture of steam boilers, a development
that allowed boilers to be heated to higher temperatures
without cracking.
One of Hendricks's most important copper customers was
Paul Revere, the famous patriot and metalsmith who lived
in Boston and who became a friend. The American Jewish
Historical Society's archives contain letters between the
two men. Another good customer was the fledgling
United States Navy. The Hendricks firm produced the
copper used to sheath three Navy vessels in New York
harbor at the same time that Revere was cladding a
fourth, the Constitution, now ironically known as Old
Ironsides, with copper probably supplied by Hendricks.
These copper-clad ships helped the United States fight
the British to a standstill in the War of 1812. Hendricks
made another contribution to the war effort by
subscribing the then-considerable sum of $40,000 to
government issued war b onds.
Robert Fulton, who is credited with inventing the
steamship, was another frequent customer of Harmon
Hendricks's copper. In the spring of 1807, Hendricks
supplied the copper used to build the boiler for the
Clermont, the first inland steam driven packet boat in
the world. The shipping of goods and passengers by
Fulton's steamships and their successors dominated
interstate travel and commerce until the invention of the
railroad.
When Harmon Hendricks died in 1838, he had helped
transform American industry. His advocacy of the use of
copper in shipbuilding made America a naval power. His
technical knowledge, engineering skill and willingness to
invest in advanced techniques of copper manufacture set
a standard for American industrial innovation. His three
sons and four grandsons succeeded him in the business.
The last member of the family to operate the business
was Harmon Washington Hendricks, who died in 1928.
Hendricks Brothers closed its last copper mill in 1938.
Just as Harmon Hendricks was able to build a business
that his descendants maintained, he was able to
continue a tradition of religious commitment that his
father, Uriah, had bequeathed to him. Each of Harmon's
children found a spouse among the families at Shearith
Israel. Son Henry joined his father-in-law, Tobias I.
Tobias, as an officer of one of the earliest Jewish
charities, the Society for the Education of Poor Children
and Relief of Indigent Persons of the Jewish Persuasion,
which was founded in 1827. In `833, Henry joined his
brother-in-law, Benjamin Nathan, as a founder of the
Hebrew Benevolent Society, which was modeled after a
similar organization established in Philadelphia by Rebecca
Gratz. In 1852, Henry Hendricks and eight others founded
Jews' Hospital, now Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York City,
the oldest Jewish medical institution in the United States.
Isaac Leeser, editor of The Occident, the leading
American Jewish newspaper of the pre-Civil War era, was
often critical of what he considered the aloof and
uncharitable attitudes of the Sephardic "grandees." To
quote Maxwell Whiteman, however, Leeser "singled out
the liberality of the Hendricks family as an exception …
Modesty and reserve continued to govern the family
attitude in matters of philanthropy, and the practice of
keeping such activity from the public eye, begun by
Harmon Hendricks, was maintained by his descendants."
In the same low-key and generous manner, the Hendricks
family descendants continue to be active in Shearith
Israel and in Jewish communal life today.
Michael Feldberg is the director of the American Jewish Historical Society. Comment on this article by clicking here.
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