I note with interest your identifiction of Samuel Elam as a Jew. What is your source of information? Samuel Elam (1753-1815) of Rhode Island, was a son of John Elam Sr. (1721-1789) and Mary Frankland Elam (c. 1724-1799) of Leeds in Yorkshire, England. He had several brothers and sisters, listed by Norma Neill in her book on The Elam Family: Quaker Merchants of England and America, pp. 65-66. The family were merchants, involved in clothing and other businesses in Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, and Rhode Island. According to Neill, Samuel went to Newport when his uncle, Gervais (or Gervase) Elam died in 1777. Gervase, who had been engaged in business in VA also became a successful merchant in Rhode Island. Gervase was a Loyalist and his property was seized by the state when he died. Samuel, his nephew and the person whose petition you mention became a permanent resident of Rhode Island, built a mansion in Portsmouth called Vaucluse,in 1792 became a member of the Rhode Island General Assembly and secured passage of a bill that permitted him to sell and dispose of his uncle's seized possessions. Samuel helpled organize the Rhode Island Union Bank and was its presidnet from its establishment to his death in 1815. Neill identifies the family as Quakers. Their ancestry connects back to a long line of Elams in Yorkshire, to at least the mid 1400s. They were separatists who disagreed with the Church of England during the reign of the Tudors. I have seen no other references to them being of Jewish background. Thank you for sharing the information you found. Samuel had to apply for citizenship, I suspect, because he came to America during the Revolution, and afterward he wanted to secure his position in Rhode Island where he was a prominent, prosperous, and politically important figure. He never married as far as I know, and his considerable estate was a subject of ligitation in the courts for years after his death.