Levi Charles Meyers Harby
Galveston, Galveston County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(September 21, 1793 - December 3, 1870) Born in Georgetown, South Carolina, Levi Charles Myers Harby was the son of Solomon Harby and Rebecca Moses Harby. During the War of 1812, Levi served in the US Navy. He was commissioned as a midshipman and stationed at Charleston. After the capture of the British ship Providence, he was one of the officers placed on the prized ship. The Providence was recaptured and Levi was a prisoner of war in England for two years. In January 1836, Revenue Cutter Service records indicate that Levi left his service aboard the cutter Dallas and had “Gone to Texas”. Some sources claim that he was affiliated with the Brutus in New Orleans and sailed her to Texas in early 1836. In 1842, at the age of 48 in Camden County, Georgia, Levi married Leonora Delyon and had three children: Henry J., Rebecca Sarah and Jacob De La Motte. His family moved with him to Galveston where Leonora became a well-known Jewish scholar, established the first Jewish Sunday school in Texas and founded the Ladies Hebrew Benevolent Society of Galveston. While living in Galveston, Levi resigned commission with the U.S. Cutter Revenue Service and offered his services to the government of the Confederate States as a heavy artillery captain during the Civil War. He served aboard the CSS Neptune during the Battle of Galveston. At the end of the war, he was in command of the Galveston Harbor. In 1865, Levi was given a Parole of Honor. He resided in Galveston until his death. Levi is buried with his wife in the Hebrew Benevolent Society Cemetery in Galveston County. (2014)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Levi Charles Myers Harby, born in South Carolina in 1793, served in the U.S. Navy during the War of 1812 and spent two years as a prisoner of war in England after his prize ship was recaptured. By 1836 he had "gone to Texas," and he later settled in Galveston, where his wife Leonora founded the first Jewish Sunday school in Texas and the city's Ladies Hebrew Benevolent Society. When the Civil War came, Harby served the Confederacy as an artillery captain aboard the CSS Neptune in the Battle of Galveston and ended the war commanding the harbor.
Why it matters
Harby's long career weaves the early U.S. Navy, Texas independence, and the Confederacy together with the founding of organized Jewish life on the Texas coast.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Levi Charles Myers Harby's long life, from 1793 to 1870, ran straight through the most formative decades of American history. He was born in Georgetown, South Carolina, in the early years of the new United States, when the nation was younger than he would live to be and its future was anything but certain.
He belonged to an established Jewish family of the Carolina Lowcountry — the son of Solomon Harby and Rebecca Moses Harby — part of one of the oldest Jewish communities in America, rooted along the southern coast well before the Revolution.
By the time he died, he had lived through the War of 1812, the birth of the Republic of Texas, the westward surge of American settlement, and the Civil War. Few lives stretch across so many separate chapters of the national story, and fewer still touch each of them as directly as his did.
People & events
His story begins at sea. During the War of 1812 he served in the U.S. Navy, commissioned as a midshipman and stationed at Charleston. After the capture of the British ship Providence, he was among the officers put aboard the prize — until the Providence was retaken and Harby found himself a prisoner of war in England for two years, a young officer waiting out the conflict far from home.
Decades later, in January 1836, Revenue Cutter Service records note that he left the cutter Dallas and had simply "Gone to Texas" — that famous phrase of the age, shorthand for Americans who set out to remake their lives on a new frontier. Some accounts tie him to the vessel Brutus, sailed to Texas early that same year.
In 1842, at forty-eight, he married Leonora Delyon, and the couple raised three children. In Galveston, Leonora became a force in her own right: a noted Jewish scholar who established the first Jewish Sunday school in Texas and founded the city's Ladies Hebrew Benevolent Society. When the Civil War came, Harby resigned from the Revenue Cutter Service and offered himself to the Confederacy as a heavy artillery captain, serving aboard the CSS Neptune in the Battle of Galveston. By war's end he commanded Galveston Harbor, and in 1865 he was given a Parole of Honor. He lived out his days in Galveston, and lies buried beside Leonora in the Hebrew Benevolent Society Cemetery.
Its place in the American story
Harby's life braids together strands of American history that are usually told apart. The early U.S. Navy, the pull of Texas, and the Confederacy all pass through this one man — and alongside them, quietly, the founding of organized Jewish life on the Texas coast.
That last thread may be the most enduring. Jews have been part of America since its earliest days, and the Harbys carried that long presence to a raw port city and put down institutions built to last. Leonora's Sunday school and benevolent society were acts of community-building, ways of making a scattered people at home on a new shore.
His wartime service is a reminder that history's participants were whole human beings, not symbols — a former U.S. naval officer and prisoner of war who, half a century later, took up arms in a very different cause. Read honestly, a life like his resists easy summary, and that is exactly why it matters.
If you visit
This is a memorial, so come in a reflective frame of mind. There is no battlefield to walk here, only the invitation to hold one remarkable life in your thoughts.
Galveston itself is part of the story. Feel the island city as a port — a place shaped by the sea, by ships and harbors and the people who arrived by water. Harby's whole life was tied to the ocean, from a British prison ship to command of this very harbor, and the setting brings that home.
If you're tracing the layered history of the Texas coast, let this stop widen the picture beyond the familiar names. Remember Leonora as much as Levi — the scholar who planted a lasting community here — and carry away the sense of a couple who lived through, and helped build, more of the American story than most of us ever glimpse.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Levi Charles Myers Harby
- · Leonora Delyon Harby
Related events
- · Battle of Galveston
Themes & tags
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