Author: Phillips, Jonas B.
Biography:
PHILLIPS, Jonas B. (1805-67: ancestry.com)
He was born into a large and influential family. His grandfather Jonas Phillips, an immigrant to America in 1756 who began in business in New York, was one of the founders of the first Jewish congregation in Philadelphia. Jonas Benjamin, born in Philadelphia on 25 Sept. 1805, was the son of Benjamin Phillips and his wife Abigail Seixas. He grew up in Philadelphia and studied law there, but moved to New York Ciry in 1828 to pursue a successful career as a criminal lawyer. Several members of the family were involved in theatre. As a young man, Jonas B. appears first to have tried prose fiction (Tales for Leisure Hours, Philadelphia 1827), and then, in New York, to have produced songs, adaptations, translations, and original dramas for the popular stage--notably a melodrama, The Evil Eye (1831), based on Shelley's Frankenstein. As late as 1837 he was said to have been responsible for most of the vaudevilles performed that year at one theatre, and to be the "support of a widowed mother during her declining years." Later he became assistant District Attorney for the county of New York. He died of Bright's disease on 15 May 1867. He never married. (ancestry.com 27 June 2025; Adler et al., "Phillips," The Jewish Encyclopedia [1906] online 23 June 2020; The Ladies' Companion 7 [1837]; Evening Telegraph [Philadelphia] 16 May 1867) HJ