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Upon discovering their distin- guished pedigree, 60 descendants of Ezekiel Solomons, an 18th-century Jewish fur trader known as Michigan's first Jewish settler, recently gathered at Fort Michilimackinac in Mackinaw City, Mich., at the tip of the Lower Peninsula. Thom Smith, a Franciscan friar in Indian River, Mich., organized the event. He discovered four years ago that Solomons was his fifth great- grandfather. Over the last few years, Smith has made contact with hundreds of Solomons' descendants living in the Great Lakes region of both the United States and Canada. Because many of the six Solomons children had families of 10 to 12 children, he estimates that thousands more remain to be discov- ered. "Ezekiel is really an inspiration to us because of his love of faith and his love of family," Smith said. Sheldon and Judith Godfrey, a hus- band-and-wife team of historians from Toronto, were honored guests at the two-day event because of the extensive original research on Solomons that they conducted for their 1995 book, Search Out the Land: The Jews and the Growth of Equality in British Colonial America, 1740-1867 (McGill-Queen's University Press; $60). The Godfreys carried the additional distinction of being the only Jews at the reunion. Although Solomons remained loyal to his Jewish faith throughout his life, he married a Roman Catholic, Louise Dubois, and all of their six children were baptized and raised as Catholics. The gathering included a few Catholic clergy and nuns, as well as some people with French Canadian ancestry and members of the Metis, Ojibwa and other native groups. Descendants of several area lighthouse keepers were also in attendance. Many came from towns in Michigan, Wisconsin and Ontario, while a few traveled from more distant cities like Toronto, Vancouver and Miami. "All were very positive about their Jewish ancestry and wanted to know as much as they could about their Jewish heritage," Sheldon Godfrey said. Family members believe Solomons was born about 1735, but because of the research done by the Godfreys, they are no longer certain of his birth- place. An elderly great-grandson said in 1900 that the illustrious fur trader was born in Berlin, but Sheldon Godfrey has a different theory. . "I believe he was one of the many Bohemian Jews who were expelled by the Empress Maria Theresa about 1746," he said. "The Jewish refugees of the 18th century came from Bohemia," a region that is today part of the Czech Republic. "All were very positive about their Jewish ancestry." — Sheldon Godfrey Before the Godfreys, few scholars had managed to penetrate deeply into Ezekiel Solomons' colorful career. He is regarded as a somewhat elusive his- torical figure because, unlike other Jewish pioneers of the period, he was illiterate in English and left no papers to posterity. He was part of a consortium of five Jewish traders who received permission from the British to establish a trading post at Fort Michilimackinac in 1761. The venture was considered poten- tially lucrative, but enormously risky. It ended abruptly on June 2, 1763, the date of a native attack on the British stronghold known as the Pontiac uprising. As one of the lucky few to escape with their lives, Solomons was cap- tured and ransomed to British forces in Montreal. In 1963, with assistance from the