Dark ruddy complexion, pock-pitted, dark black hair to grey, brown eyes, long nose, long double chin. Stout made, slightly pock-pitted. A Jew. Can read and write.
Thus is Aaron Woolf - Australia's first Latvian - described in John S. Levi's These Are the Names. I had looked him up in response to an enquiry from a person in Latvia working on a biography of the man who stole fourteen gold watches and got sentenced in 1828 to transportation for seven years. Fourteen years later, his wife was still looking for him, and a letter was sent to Hobart from the London Rabbinical Court:
His wife living here as a respectable woman wishes to know the truth. We therefore hope you will make every enquiry and will oblige us with every particular thereof to relieve the poor Woman from her anxiety.
(That's how the entry ends.)
Photo of two convicts in chains. Source: Museum Victoria
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