Saul Pardo Brown

Saul Pardo Brown was a merchant and the first known religious leader, or ḥazzan, of New York. Brown came to New York in about 1685 from Rhode Island where he had been a merchant. The same year he petitioned Governor Thomas Dongan for permission to engage in retail trade. Although the privilege was denied to all Jews, Brown received the right to be a wholesale trader. By 1695 he became ḥazzan to the Congregation Shearith Israel.

Brown died in Curacao and family disappeared from New York records after the death of his wife Esther in 1708.