Abraham Cohen Labatt

Abraham Cohen Labatt (1802, Charleston, South Carolina - August 16, 1899, Galveston, Texas) was an American Sephardic Jew who was a prominent pioneer of Reform Judaism in the United States in the 19th century, founding several early congregations in the South and in San Francisco after the Gold Rush. A merchant, in the 1830s he helped pioneer trade between United States interests in Charleston and those in Texas and Mexico.

Abraham Labatt was a Sephardic Jew born in Charleston, South Carolina. His parents were from families who had been in Charleston from its early colonial years. Their ancestors had emigrated from Spain and Portugal, via the Netherlands and England.

As a young man, in 1825 Labatt helped organize the Reform congregation in Charleston, the first in the United States.

A few years later, he moved with his young family to Charlotte, North Carolina, where he worked as a merchant and trader. In 1831 he moved to New Orleans, where he engaged in mercantile pursuits. In that city, he was one of the founders of the first Jewish congregations in Louisiana, which became known as the Portuguese Jewish Nefutzot Yehudah congregation (or Portuguese Synagogue). (In 1870, its rabbi visited Galveston to dedicate the cornerstone of the first synagogue of Congregation B'nai Israel.)

In 1831, Labatt visited Velasco, Texas, then part of Mexico, which had achieved independence in 1821, to explore opportunities for international trade. A settlement had just been started based on a trading post. He visited again in 1837 as supercargo of the steamship 'Columbia. This was the first cargo ship to trade between the U.S., via Charleston, and Texas (by then an independent republic) and Mexico.

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