Marks Lazarus
109 Tradd Street
Marks Lazarus (1757–1835) was a veteran of the June 1776 Battle of Sullivan’s Island. Taken captive when Charleston fell to the British in May 1780, he was held prisoner for the last two-and-a-half years of the war. A merchant, Marks Lazarus had married the powerhouse Rachel DeTorres Benjamin (1762–1847) in 1776. Marks Lazarus bought this lot with a “valuable house” in 1818 for $6,200, a substantial sum at the time. (After his death, his widow kept the house as a rental property.) In 1820, although Marks Lazarus was a member of Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim’s conservative adjunta, his sons were reformers, and Michael Lazarus served as vice president and then president of the Reformed Society of Israelites.
