Isaac Pinto (1720-1791), Jewish merchant and scholar, supported the American patriots during the Revolutionary period.

Isaac Pinto, born probably in Portugal, was of Sephardic Jewish ancestry. His tombstone establishes his birthdate as June 12, 1720. The family came to America, possibly via Jamaica, sometime before 1740. Pinto was named on the roll of New York City's early synagogue Shearith Israel for 1740-1741, but he entered the import-export business, traveled widely, and apparently had varying places of residence. He lived for a time in Norwalk, Conn., and was perhaps the Isaac Pinto who signed a Stratford, Conn., petition in 1748. He was certainly a wholesale wine merchant in Charleston, S.C. (1760-1762), but New York City was his primary abode. In 1764 he signed a petition against a colonial legislative act requiring new buildings in lower Manhattan to be of brick or stone; 4 years later the New York Journal carried his advertisement for selling...