Moses Field (1779-1833)

He was born at Yorktown, N.Y., and came to New York City in about 1800 where his elder brother, Josiah, was already in business as a wholesale drug merchant with Dr. Samuel Bradhurst. After Josiah died in 1806, Moses became a partner in Bradhurst & Field, and he was able to retire with a comfortable fortune in 1820 when he made a tour of Europe. On his return in 1821, he married Susan Kittridge Osgood, daughter of Samuel Osgood, Commissioner of the U.S. Treasury, U.S. Postmaster-General and President of the City Bank of New York. They lived between their townhouse at 482 Broadway and a country estate in Peekskill. They had seven children (listed). During the particularly severe winter of 1828-29 when the poor suffered severely, Moses established a soup house at the corner of Houston and Mercer Streets that he maintained at his own expense. The average number of rations given out daily was a staggering 2,686. Throughout his lifetime he helped those in need by depositing loads of wood at their doors with a loaf or two of bread that came daily thereafter. In part, his obituary read, "the poor could not have sustained a greater loss... No man had more enlarged, or persevering benevolence in feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and providing for the sick".