ETTING

ETTING , pioneer Jewish family in Baltimore, Maryland. elijah etting (1724–1778), progenitor of the family in the U.S., arrived in the U.S. from Germany in 1758, settling in York, Pennsylvania, where he became an important Indian trader. After his death his widow, shinah (née Solomon), moved to Baltimore with five of her seven children. Her two sons Reuben and Solomon also settled there eventually. reuben etting (1762–1848), Maryland political figure, was born in York, Pa. During a period when Jews still lived in Maryland by license rather than by right, Reuben assumed the duties of a full citizen in 1798 when a war between the United States and France seemed imminent and became captain of a militia company. Reuben was long involved in politics as a Jeffersonian Republican and was appointed U.S. marshal for Maryland in 1801 by President Jefferson. He was thus the first Jew in Maryland to hold public office, a quarter of a century before the Jews gained civic equality in the state. solomon etting (1764–1847), businessman, political figure, and Jewish civic rights leader, also born in York, Pa., became a shoḥet at the age of 18, the first American Jew to serve in this capacity. At first a hardware storekeeper, Solomon subsequently became a banker, a shipper, a founder of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and an important businessman. He was prominent in the Baltimore Republican Society, a Jeffersonian political club. He was a leader in the defense of Baltimore against the British in the War of 1812, during which his 18-year-old son Samuel was wounded in the battle at nearby Fort McHenry. Etting was a "manager" of the Maryland State Colonization Society, which sought to promote the resettlement of blacks in Africa. Etting was active in the Baltimore German Society and served as its vice president from 1820 to 1840. Although he was not involved in any Jewish organization in Baltimore, he supported the synagogue of his youth, Mikveh Israel, in Philadelphia. In 1801 he purchased land for a Jewish cemetery in Baltimore. He also led in the struggle for Jewish civic rights, opposing the Maryland law requiring of officeholders a Christian oath. As early as 1797 he appealed to the State Legislature on behalf of a "sect of people called Jews, deprived of invaluable rights of citizenship and praying to be placed on the same footing as other good citizens." This petition initiated a three-decade struggle, which ended successfully in 1826. Soon thereafter, Etting served as a Baltimore councilman. Solomon Etting's second wife was the daughter of the prominent leader Barnard *Gratz.

bibliography

Rosenbloom, Biog Dict, 35–36; ajhs, 2 (1894), 33–44; 17 (1909), 81–88; 34 (1937), 66–69; Baroway, in: MarylandHistorical Magazine, 15 (1920), 1–20; E.M. Altfeld, Jews Struggle for Religious and Civil Liberty in Maryland (1924), index; A.J.M. Pedley (ed.), Manuscript Collections of the Maryland Historical Society (1968), index.

[Isaac M. Fein]