History Department

Encyclopedia of Southern Jewish Communities
Overview >> Mississippi >> Grand Gulf
Grand Gulf, Mississippi

Grand Gulf, located in the northwest corner of Claiborne County, was once a bustling port in the 1800s.  Originating as a French settlement in the early eighteenth century, the rise of southern cotton, which moved along the Mississippi River to the urban North for textile manufacturing, led to the emergence of Grand Gulf.  In a typical week, over twenty steamboats would stop in this Mississippi town to trade and to restock.  These boats carried not only goods but also new arrivals such as young Jewish merchants.

Jewish peddlers likely settled in Grand Gulf after travels on the Mississippi, where they desired new homes away from the bustling larger port of New Orleans.  In the winter of 1838, the newspaper Grand Gulf Advertiser discussed the dissolution of Levy’s House, a business owned by New Orleans’ J.L. and H.P. Levy.  These men probably ran a warehouse for the passing steamboat trader, yet business was not strong enough to remain there permanently.  Jewish businesses specializing in dry goods and groceries also existed in Grand Gulf such as Reynolds, Abraham and Company.  Although no record exists of a synagogue in Grand Gulf, Jews typically involved themselves in the Jewish communities of neighboring towns, including marrying into the families of Fayette or helping to start Congregation Gemiluth Chassed in Port Gibson in 1859.

While Grand Gulf reached a pinnacle of success by the middle years of the 1800s, multiple events eventually led to its demise.  Between 1840 and 1860, several bouts of yellow fever spread throughout the Claiborne County area and decimated much of Grand Gulf’s population.  In the 1850s, not only did a tornado destroy some of the town, but also the Mississippi River began to change course, which destroyed much of the port’s business district.  While natural disasters and disease caused Grand Gulf to decline, the end of Grand Gulf came about during the Civil War as a result of the Union’s Vicksburg Campaign.  While the town of Grand Gulf held under Confederate batteries, Union forces under General Grant were eventually able to cross the Mississippi farther south and overpower the Confederates thus ending the siege of Vicksburg on July 4, 1863.  Around this same time, Samuel L. Benjamin, an immigrant from Alsace-Lorraine, settled in New Orleans and later in Natchez, where he entered the Confederate Army in 1862 only to find his military duties ended a year later due to his capture at Grand Gulf.  While Benjamin left with a grand finale, many Jews had left before him from this dying port.

Today, the Grand Gulf Military Monument Park stands on the land that once possessed one of the most prosperous ports along the Mississippi.  While no present Jewish community exists there today, an interesting discovery was made in the late 1980s.  In 1988, scholars found nine gravestones inscribed in Hebrew, which date back as early as 1853.  These nine Jews were most likely French and German immigrants coming to settle in Woodville, but who ended up dying in Grand Gulf, most likely from the yellow fever epidemic.  Without a doubt, the gravestones exemplify the often hidden history of Jewish life in Mississippi.