He was a Quaker, and the owner and captain of the British war brig "The Roebuck”. In 1745 he commanded the ship "George” and was so prosperous that from 1756 to 1760 he was part owner of no less than 25 different vessels. During part of this time he was a shipping merchant of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and in 1756 was a Lieutenant in Captain Samuel Mifflin’s Company of Philadelphia Associators. In 1766 he became a member of the Society for the Relief of the Poor, Aged and Infirm Masters of Ships, their Widows and Children, and was elected President of the Port of Philadelphia. He lived in a large stone house on Front Street in Philadelphia, where his children were educated. The dames of fashion in Philadelphia during the earlier part of that century lived most probably on Market Street below Third, there and on the riverfront the merchants had their dwellings and shops usually under the same roof. Many of these merchants opened a shipping trade to the West Indies and England and from small ventures grew colossal fortunes. The town extended no farther than Fourth Street until after the Revolution. Seventh Street was quite out of town.
As soon as his eldest sons, John and Oswell, were large enough, he took them to sea with him, leaving his wife and daughter at home at "Northern Liberties” near Philadelphia, where they lived in very comfortable circumstances until near the commencement of the Revolutionary War. Due to misfortunes in business, from 1 May 1768 until 1773 he and sons John and Oswell engaged in business, living primarily at Montego Bay, Jamaica. He returned from Montego Bay on his ship, the schooner "Sally” about 1 January 1774 to his plantation of 200 acres valued at 5000 pounds near "Frankford” now part of Philadelphia. He also owned four acres with buildings valued at 1475 pounds in the "Northern Liberties” near Germantown Road and Canal Street in present day Philadelphia. He was one of the English Loyalists whose estates were forfeited to Pennsylvania for their high treason in 1778-9. When the Revolutionary War broke out he and his family moved to Nassau, where he died in 1793 in New Providence at his son Joseph’s house. He had a land grant on Cat Island, Bahamas in 1783. A partial list of Eve vessels trading in the Caribbean: 1747 the MARTHA VODROIT, captured by the French privateer Capt. Lelay that year in Delaware Bay; 1750 the brig SHIRLEY leaving Delaware valley ports; 1760 the CANTERBURY, Capt. ____ Eve, arrived Friday, 28 March at the Downes from Jamaica; 1760 the INDUSTRY, arrived Antigua 27 June from New York under Capt. ____ Eve; 1770 the brig ANN, Charles Biddle sometime captain; the GEORGE; 1774 the schooner SALLY, arrived in Philadelphia from Honduras that year; the war brig ROEBUCK, on which Oswell Eve had a commission; 1780 the brig NANCY
Captain Eve, Sr., was a leader of 18th century Philadelphia merchant society, having a fleet of some 25 vessels that plied the Atlantic and Caribbean, with warehouse and facilities in the Bahamas, Nassau, Jamaica, Honduras and Belize---and perhaps more. He also owned the only gunpowder manufactory in the Colonies at the outbreak of the Revolution, in Frankford. In 1777, no less than Paul Revere visited under a subterfuge in order to learn the secrets of Eve’s production, and then returned to Massachusetts to set up his own.
Captain Oswell Eve, Sr. had four sons and a daughter; two of the sons ultimately settled in Augusta, Georgia. His daughter, Sarah, sister of Augusta’s Captain Oswell Eve was engaged to be married to Dr. Benjamin Rush, a Signer of the Declaration of Independence, and generally acknowledged founder of the medical profession in the United States. Unfortunately, Sarah died three weeks before the wedding. Two of Captain Eve, Sr.’s four sons became ship captains like himself and commanded their own ships while teenagers. Another of his sons, Joseph Eve, fell under the influence and tutelage of his brother in law to be, Dr. Benjamin Rush, and became a medical doctor. When the Eves moved south to Georgia and South Carolina, some of the Rushes moved with them. Out of this association ultimately grew the Medical College of Georgia and founders of the medical profession in the state.

From Aunt Emma Smith's letter to me of May 1876:
"My grand parents must have come over England about the year 1750 for my father was the second child and he was born in 1754. There were four sons and one daughter: These were John, Sarah, Oswell, William and Joseph."
His father was the owner and captain of the British war brig "The Roebuck". My uncle Joseph had his fathers commission in his possession. As soon as his two eldest sons John and Oswell were large enough he took them to sea with him leaving the rest of his family at a place near Philadelphia where his wife and daughter lived until the war commenced in very comfortable circumstances seeing a great deal of company. It was then Dr. Rush became engaged to my Aunt, but she died three weeks before the event was to take place. When the war broke out my grandparents went to Nassau and lived and died at Uncle Joseph's house in "New Providence".
In the "History , Civil and Commercial of the British Colonies in the West Indies" Vol. 4, 1806, occur these entries viz. of the Eastern parish Church.
This building erected by Mr. Joseph Eve, who informed me that he had made the roof low to avoid
hurricanes, has a modern air, but it is not yet apparently finished". Also in enumerating the most
experienced and intelligent planters among other names is that of "Eve and nine other gentleman". In the list of subscriber's names to the publication is that of "Joseph Bennett Eve". ®1893

He may have been born in Bermondsey, Surrey, England