Handbook of Texas Online
Albert Moses (Moses A.) Levy, physician, was born to Abraham and Rachel Cornelia (Bernard) Levy in 1800, probably in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
The Levy family moved to Richmond, Virginia, in 1818.
His brothers and sisters were: Isaac, Jacob, Lewis, Esther, Mary, Julia and Rebecca.
Albert, who was Jewish, married Maria A. Bishop, an Episcopalian, about 1830; they had one child, Rachel Cornelia, born in 1832, the year Levy completed medical school at the University of Pennsylvania.
On April 22, 1834, the family moved to Pittsylvania County, Virginia, about 120 miles from Richmond.
Rachel was six months old when his wife died in 1835.
His brother, Jacob A. Levy, and wife, Martha Ezekiel, took Rachel to raise along with their own five children.
Brokenhearted from the loss of his beloved wife, Albert Moses Levy went to New Orleans to visit relatives; there he heard about Texas and its struggle for independence.
He joined the New Orleans Greys and left for Texas. Within two months he was appointed surgeon in chief of the volunteer army of Texas.
His military service was from October 22, 1835 to February 10, 1836 and included service in the siege of Bexar, where he was wounded.
After leaving the army, Levy joined the Texas Navy aboard the schooner Brutus.
David G. Burnet, president of the Republic of Texas, signed Levy’s papers appointing him a surgeon in the navy in March 1836.
On April 17, 1837, Levy’s ship, the Independence, was captured by two Mexican brigs-of-war.
After three months he escaped and walked back to Texas, where he set up medical practice in Matagorda.
The next year he received an appointment to a medical board established by both houses of the Congress of the republic.
He was given several grants of land for his services.
In Llano County he received warrant #664 for 1,280 acres of land for his services, when he and his other men fought with Fannin.
Certificates #151 for 640 acres of land for his participation in the Siege of Bexar, and #44 for one league and one labor of land in Matagorda County on which he decided to make his home and practice medicine.
On April 4, 1838, Levy married Claudinia Olivia Gervais, also an Episcopalian and the daughter of Judge Sinclair David Gervais.
She was born in Yazoo, Mississippi.
They had five children: Katherine Levy, born in 1839; Albert Gervais, born November 2, 1840; Laura Virginia, born April 4, 1843; Charles Gillette, born May 29, 1845; and Lewis Fisher, born December 29, 1847.
On Oct. 17, 1830, Albert Moses Levy deeded 428 acres of land on Jones Creek in Brazoria County to his daughter, Rachel Cornelia Levy, who was living in Richmond, Henrico County, Virginia, but she never acknowledged the gift.
Levy was Jewish and when he married a Gentile, his people disowned him.
He and his wife, Claudinia joined the Episcopal Church. Levy died May 22, 1848, and was buried in Matagorda Cemetery.
Dr. Levy had a good practice and was well-loved in Matagorda.
Levy committed suicide in May 1848.
After his death, Claudinia sold her home to Dr. Edward A. Peareson and returned to Mississippi to live near her brother, sisters and other relatives.
The state of Texas honored him with a historical marker in Matagorda Cemetery and the city of Houston declared April 30, 1986, Albert Moses Levy Memorial Day, in honor of Jews who participated in the fight for Texas independence.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Historic Matagorda County, Volume I, page 158; Pat Ireland Nixon, The Medical Story of Early Texas, 1528–1853 (Lancaster, Pennsylvania: Lupe Memorial Fund, 1946). Natalie Ornish, Pioneer Jewish Texans (Dallas: Texas Heritage Press, 1989).