Judah Touro: The Man Who Gave New Orleans Everything

The Man Who Gave New Orleans Everything

Judah Touro was born on June 16, 1775, in Newport, Rhode Island. His father Isaac served as hazzan at the Touro Synagogue — the oldest synagogue in the United States. When both parents died young, Judah was raised by his uncle Moses Michael Hays in Boston. In 1801, at twenty-six, he moved to New Orleans, a city that had just become American through the Louisiana Purchase. He arrived with almost nothing and built one of the great fortunes of the antebellum South.

Touro started as a merchant, selling soap, candles, and codfish. He expanded into shipping, real estate, and trade. He was disciplined, frugal, and patient — qualities that don't make for exciting biography but make for extraordinary wealth. By the mid-nineteenth century, Judah Touro was one of the richest men in New Orleans.

The Battle of New Orleans

During the War of 1812, Touro volunteered for Andrew Jackson's defense of New Orleans despite poor health. At the Battle of New Orleans on January 8, 1815, he was carrying ammunition to the batteries when a twelve-pound shot struck him, nearly killing him. A Virginia merchant named Rezin Davis Shepherd nursed him back to health — beginning a friendship that lasted the rest of their lives. Touro fought for his adopted city and nearly died for it.

A Legacy of Generosity

What Touro did with his fortune is what makes his story extraordinary. He gave across every line — religious, racial, geographic. He funded hospitals, synagogues, churches, and almshouses in New Orleans. He donated to the Bunker Hill Monument in Boston. He gave twenty thousand dollars to what became Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. His will distributed over five hundred thousand dollars — an almost unimaginable sum in 1854 — to causes ranging from Jerusalem relief efforts to local New Orleans institutions.

Touro Synagogue and Touro Infirmary in New Orleans bear his name. He died on January 18, 1854, a man who had arrived in the city with nothing, fought in its most famous battle, built a fortune through honest commerce, and then gave nearly all of it away. Judah Touro is the patron saint of New Orleans philanthropy, and the city has never had a more generous citizen.