Joseph Hewes was born in 1730 near Kingston in West Jersey, now New Jersey, the eldest son of Aaron Hewes and Providence Worth Hewes. His parents were Quaker farmers associated with the Chesterfield Monthly Meeting. Differences between the Julian calendar then in use and the later Gregorian calendar account for conflicting versions of his birthday; contemporary Quaker records place it on the twenty-eighth day of the fourth month, while later biographies commonly render the date as July 9. He grew up in a religious culture that valued plain living, literacy, disciplined work, and the authority of conscience.

Hewes did not follow his father permanently into farming. He attended the Kingston Friends’ Grammar School, completing his known schooling around 1749. Later tradition sometimes credits him with study at the College of New Jersey, but firm evidence for attendance there is lacking, so the Quaker grammar school is the safest documented description of his education. The curriculum would have prepared him in reading, writing, arithmetic, and the practical habits needed for trade.

In 1749 Hewes moved to Philadelphia and apprenticed himself to Joseph Ogden, a relative and successful merchant-importer. During approximately five years in Ogden’s business, he learned commerce from the warehouse and waterfront upward: handling cargo, keeping accounts, judging goods, extending credit, corresponding with distant partners, and arranging transportation. Philadelphia’s busy port also brought him into contact with the wider British Atlantic economy and showed him possibilities beyond rural New Jersey.

After completing the apprenticeship in 1754, Hewes attempted to establish himself as an independent merchant. He searched for a market in which a young trader could advance with less competition and ultimately chose Edenton, North Carolina, arriving early in 1755. The small but active port connected the Albemarle region’s planters and producers with coastal and transatlantic trade. Hewes’s move to Edenton ended his formative years. The Quaker farmer’s son had become an experienced merchant, equipped with the commercial skills, relationships, and financial judgment that would later support both his wealth and his revolutionary public service.