Joseph Darmsdatt (d. 3 January 1820), merchant and civic leader, was born probably in the German landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt. His original surname may have been Josel (the name of a brother identified in his will), but this and everything else about his background is uncertain. Accounts of his life, which usually spell his name Darmstadt, agree that he arrived in the United States as a sutler for a group of Hessian troops fighting for the British during the Revolutionary War. Taken prisoner during the Battle of Saratoga, he was eventually sent with other Hessians to a camp near Charlottesville. After the war, he decided to remain in Virginia.
On 6 December 1784 Darmsdatt took an oath of allegiance before the Henrico County Court and assumed the rights of citizenship. By then he had likely begun developing the business connections that turned him into a successful Richmond-based merchant. Darmsdatt cultivated a clientele among the many German farmers in the Shenandoah Valley who brought their products to Richmond, and he also imported goods for sale from the West Indies and Europe. From 1806 to 1808 he operated an auction and commission house with two partners. His establishment on the city's market square (where he also lived) became a popular gathering place where Richmonders assembled to discuss the events of the day over coffee. Darmsdatt attracted many friends with a jovial personality, but he guarded his interests carefully and often resorted to the courts to collect debts. Eventually he acquired a number of properties in Richmond and Henrico County.
A founder in August 1789 of Kahal Kadosh Beth Shalome, Virginia's first synagogue and the sixth Jewish congregation established in the United States, Darmsdatt added his skills to a small but successful Jewish community in Richmond. Observant in his faith, he once composed a humorous skit for the holiday of Purim, verses recognized as one of the earliest American Jewish poems still extant. Darmsdatt's relations with other Richmond Jews could be prickly. He once charged a co-religionist with battery (a case that ended up before the Virginia Court of Appeals) and was involved in an estate dispute after being named beneficiary of a will, instead of the decedent's family. There is no indication, however, that his support of Beth Shalome ever wavered.
Like many other leading members of Richmond's Jewish community, Darmsdatt mixed easily with the city's mercantile and civic establishment. He embraced the Masonic order and became an early member of Richmond's Lodge No. 10. Darmsdatt served as master of this lodge for four terms between 1791 and 1796. In 1791 he lent a large sum of money to cover the lingering costs of the city's Masonic temple, but a long-running dispute over the loan led to the severing of ties between him and the lodge. In spite of this conflict, Darmsdatt remained an influential Mason. In 1792 he helped found the city's Royal Arch lodge and served as its second high priest. Active as well in the Grand Lodge of Virginia, the Masons' statewide organization, he served as grand senior warden in 1791, deputy grand master the following year, and grand treasurer from 1794 until 1807, when he retired from office. In addition, Darmsdatt became one of the earliest members of the Amicable Society of Richmond, an exclusive charitable organization that boasted such leaders as William Foushee, John Marshall, and John Mayo. In June 1816 he was elected to Richmond's common council representing Jefferson Ward, but he resigned the office after only two weeks.
Joseph Darmsdatt remained a popular figure of Richmond's mercantile community until his death on 3 January 1820. He never married and left no immediate heirs. Business reversals caused by the financial panic of 1819 greatly reduced the fortune he might otherwise have distributed. By his bequest his property was auctioned off, with $500 going to a local charity, other allotments to several female friends, and the remainder to his family in Germany.
Sources Consulted:
Biographies in Samuel Mordecai, Virginia, Especially Richmond, in By-Gone Days…, 2d ed. (1860), 147–148, and Herbert T. Ezekiel and Gaston Lichtenstein, The History of the Jews of Richmond from 1769 to 1917 (1917), 26–28; Henrico Co. Deed Book, 6:56, 11:326, 12:623–625, 14:263–264, 16:57–60; Henrico Co. Order Book, 2:1; Richmond Enquirer, 28 Oct. 1806, 11 Oct. 1808; Richmond City Common Council Minutes, 5:199, 209; Darmsdatt v. Wolfe (1809) (4 Hening and Munford), Virginia Reports, 14:246–253; John Dove, Proceedings of the M. W. Grand Lodge of Ancient York Masons of the State of Virginia (1874); Jacob Rader Marcus, Early American Jewry: The Jews of Pennsylvania and the South, 1655–1790 (1953), 219–223; Myron Berman, Richmond's Jewry, 1769–1976: Shabbat in Shockoe (1979), 80–82, 84, 90, 361; signature on 1814 receipt in Jacob Crist v. Exr. of Joseph Darmsdatt, 1820-007, Henrico Co. Chancery Causes, Library of Virginia; Richmond City Hustings Will Book, 3:1–2; death notices in Richmond Enquirer and Virginia Patriot and Richmond Daily Mercantile Advertiser, both 4 Jan. 1820.
Written for the Dictionary of Virginia Biography by William Bland Whitley.
How to cite this page:
William Bland Whitley,"Joseph Darmsdatt (d. 1820)," Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Library of Virginia (1998– ), published 2016 (http://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/dvb/bio.asp?b=Darmsdatt_Joseph, accessed [today's date]).
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