Bank of Montreal Head office, at 129 Saint-Jacques Street, in Montreal. Built in 1845 based on plans by John Wells.
Photo Credit : Public domain
The Bank of Montreal, Canada's first major bank, was incorporated in Montreal, the prime focus of early nineteenth Canadian business and finance.
Photo Credit : National Archives of Canada / C-114547
Document depicting the early Jewish settlers of Quebec.
Photo Credit : Jewish Public Library - Archives
1764 - 1824
David David
David David was the first Jewish baby born in Canada, who later became a founder of the Bank of Montreal.
David was the first Jewish baby ever born in Canada, the eldest son of Lazarus David and Phebe Samuel. He grew up within the small Jewish community there, numbering perhaps fewer than one hundred at the time. His father, Lazarus, had established himself as a wealthy trader and land-owner. David, the son, began as a fur trader, eventually connecting with the North West Company and being admitted to the Beaver Club in 1817. He owned a store in Montreal where he sold teas, spices, groceries, hardware, dry goods, crockery, and glassware while trading in wheat, and doing business with the military. A founding director of the Bank of Montreal, he served in that position from 1818 to 1824. In 1807, he was appointed an officer in the militia.
David was one of the first to be appointed “life-governor” of the Montreal General Hospital. He also served on the board of the Lachine Canal Company. Besides large urban real estate holdings, he owned four thousand acres in Lower Canada. At his death, his estate was estimated at over $300,000 (the equivalent of over $4,000,000 today). The land on which the first synagogue in Canada was built, the Spanish and Portuguese on Little St. James Street, was donated to the congregation by David.
Learn more:
Jacobson, Maxime. ———. “Struggles and Successes: The Beginnings of Jewish Life in Canada in the Eighteenth Century.” In Canada’s Jews: In Time, Space, and Spirit, edited by Ira Robinson. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2013).
Lapidus, Steven. “The Golden Century? Canada’s Jews in British North America.” In Canada’s Jews: In Time, Space, and Spirit, edited by Ira Robinson. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2013).
Sheldon J. Godfrey & Judith C. Godfrey, Search Out the Land: The Jews and the Growth of Equality in British Colonial America, 1740-1867, (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press, 1995)
Tulchinsky, Gerald. Branching Out: The Transformation of the Canadian Jewish Community. (Toronto: Stoddart, 1998). http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/david_david_6E.html
