DE LA MOTTA, JACOB

DE LA MOTTA, JACOB (1789–1845), antebellum southern U.S. physician. De la Motta was born in Savannah, Georgia. After getting a medical degree at the University of Pennsylvania in 1810 at the age of 21, he practiced in Charleston, South Carolina, until the outbreak of the War of 1812. Volunteering his services, De la Motta was commissioned as a surgeon in the U.S. Army. After the war he practiced in New York City and became an active Freemason, initiating his career as a leader in the medical, scientific, fraternal, political, cultural, and Jewish religious life of his times. In 1818 De la Motta set up practice in Savannah, where he did research on yellow fever, was active in politics, and continued his interest in Masonry. De la Motta returned to Charleston (1823), where he became a leading physician. He served as secretary of the Medical Society of South Carolina for ten years, as a trustee of the State Medical College, as assistant commissioner of health, and as physician for several public institutions. He set up a famous pharmacy called "Apothecaries Hall" and helped revise the Pharmacopeia of the United States of America (1830²). A Whig dissenter from the dominant nullification politics of antebellum Charleston, De la Motta ran for Congress but lost. President Harrison, whom he supported, appointed him receiver general for South Carolina in 1841. He achieved the highest Masonic office in Scottish Rite as grand commander of the Supreme Council (1844). Strongly Orthodox, De la Motta was a leading opponent of reform in Beth Elohim's ritual during the 1840s. He was a founder of the breakaway Orthodox congregation, Shearith Israel, and its first president.

bibliography:

T.J. Tobias, in: The Jewish Experience in America, 2 (1969), 64–81.

[Thomas J. Tobias]