History of Lehigh county, Pennsylvania and a genealogical and biographical record of its families, Vol. I, Part 40

Author: Roberts, Charles Rhoads; Stoudt, John Baer, 1878- joint comp; Krick, Thomas H., 1868- joint comp; Dietrich, William Joseph, 1875- joint comp; Lehigh County Historical Society
Publication date: 1914
Publisher: Allentown, Pa. : Lehigh Valley Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 1158

USA > Pennsylvania > Lehigh County > History of Lehigh county, Pennsylvania and a genealogical and biographical record of its families, Vol. I > Part 40

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

CONCLUSION.

The action of President Adams, in pardoning Fries, Heaney and Getman, was the cause of much

dissension in the Cabinet, and, between him and his political friends, it engendered a bitterness of feeling that was never entirely obliterated. So far as official action was concerned, the act of pardon closed the drama of the "Rebellion," and removed it from further consideration. This final disposition of the affair, however, did not have the effect of taking it out of politics, but, for a number of years afterward, it was made a stand- ing text, particularly in eastern Pennsylvania, for philipics against the Federal party. In the campaign which soon followed, between Mr. Jef- ferson and John Adams, it was used with tremen- dous effect against the latter and assisted very materially in hurling him and his friends from power. It was one of the leading causes which produced the great political revolution in this State in 1800, and the Federal party never re- covered from the odium it entailed upon it. We remember when the names of Fries, Heaney and Getman were mingled in our local county poli- tics; and more than one Democrat, in Bucks county, owed his elevation to skillful use made of the events growing out of the house-tax law of 1798.

The part Mr. Adams took, in the matter of pardoning the insurgents was alike creditable to his head and heart, and tends to remove, in some degree, the stigma his approval of the Alien and Sedition Law, and the House Tax fastened upon his administration. That he was moved to it by the best of motives, and prompted by the dictates of a kind heart, there can be no ques- tion, and it is equally certain the act was his own, and against the wish and advice of his cabinet. He has left behind him a record of the satisfaction it gave him. In his tenth letter, in the Boston Patriot, of May 17, 1809, remark- ing on his responsibility for all his executive acts, and that it was his right and duty to be governed by his own judgment, although in direct conflict with the advice of all his ministers, he says: "This was my situation in more than one instance. It had been so in the nomination of Mr. Gerry; it was afterwards so in the pardon of Fries; two measures that I recollect with infinite satisfac- tion, and which will console me in my last hour."

It was suspected at the time of the disturbance, that more prominent men than the unfortunates who fell into the hands of the Federal authori- ties were at the bottom of the rebellion; and even the names of some of the leaders of the Federal party were connected with it. After the trial, John Fries told a Mr. Wood, a clerk in one of the Departments, and who was also clerk of the prison, "that great men were at the bottom of this business" Oliver Wolcott, in a. letter to John Adams, dated Philadelphia, May

210

HISTORY OF LEHIGH COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

II, 1799, states that B. McClenachan, a member of the Assembly of Pennsylvania, was certainly an agitator among the insurgents. One authority upon the subject says :

"Much of the blame attending upon this dis- turbance is cast upon Mr. Sitgreaves, formerly a member of Congress from the Bucks district, and Eyerly, both disappointed politicians. The former followed the march of the troops and appears to have been busy in hunting up per- sons who had opposed the law. Eyerly was de- feated at the election that fall. Fries was a Fed- eralist, and ardent supporter of John Adam's ad- ministration, on which account it is supposed he was not afraid of an arrest, believing that his Federal friends would not molest him. Probably Sitgreaves and Eyerly are those to whom Fries refers, that more prominent men were at the bottom of it and left Fries in the lurch. This is given as the reason that the Federal members of the legislature opposed the institution of any inquiry into the cause of the disturbance. It is said it was the desire of the Federalists to bring odium on the Republicans by ordering federal troops into the county to put down the rebel- lion."

"However this may be-we mean the partici- pation of men of prominence in the disturbance, we think the matter is now pretty clearly es- tablished that the affair had given to it much greater importance than merited. We are also well convinced, had the proper steps been taken to quiet the agitation, through the agency of the local authorities there would never have been any need of the interposition of the Federal au- thorities. In this opinion we are sustained by some of the actors in the scenes that grew out of it. Among others an officer of the army, writing from camp while it lay in Bucks county says: "I need not add after what I have before written to you, that every hour's experience was not only unnecessary, but violently absurd. I can take upon me to assert, that excepting in the rash act of rescuing the people under arrest from the mar- shal, there has not been even a desire of resist- ance manifested, and the most marked censure of many persons now in custody. I do verily be- lieve that a sergeant and six men might have per- formed all the service for which we have been assembled at so heavy an expense to the United States, and with such a loss of important time to us, especially those who are in the mercantile line."

This seems to have been the opinion of all who were acquainted with the whole affair, except those violent partisans whose prejudices were too strong and too bitter to permit them to judge the case with fairness. The whole cost of the ex-

pedition to the United States is said to have been $80,000.00.

When Fries was liberated there was great re- joicing throughout the country, but the anti-Fed- eralists failed to give Mr. Adams credit for his act of mercy and clemency. As would naturally be the case, they attributed the act, which he said would console him in his last hours, to sin- ister motives, and, if anything, they increased the bitterness of their attack upon him and his administration. Such, however, is the history of political parties the world over, and we are not surprised to find no departure therefrom in the exciting times of '98 and '99.

The subsequent history of Fries is brief and void of interest. Upon his release from impris- onment he went directly to the humble home which had sheltered him before he became so famous, and again entered into the ordinary cur- rent of life. He resumed his old avocation of vendue crying, and, as before, in company with his little dog, traversed the county back and forth, crying the sales of his neighbors and acquain- tance, The events of the "Rebellion" left some bitterness behind it took years to heal, and, from time to time, this lingering ill-feeling broke out in that section of the county. There was much hostlity against Penrose, who piloted the troops to Bunker Hill when they captured Fries, and the friends of the latter hardly ever forgave him. A few years after his return home Conrad Marks and his friends came down to Quakertown to whip Penrose, who, with a number of his neigh- bors, was breaking the roads filled with snow drifts. Marks mistook his man, got hold of a nephew of the one he sought and received a good whipping for his trouble. It is also related that soon after his pardon the friends of Fries, who lived near Sumneytown, Montgomery county, raised a Liberty Pole, rather as a mark of exultation over the defeat of the schemes of the Federalists. John Rodrock, the same who had received indignity at the hands of Fries, was in Philadelphia at the time attending market, and, on his return sent his hired man to cut the pole down, which he accomplished. The people soon got wind of it and pursued and caught the party before they had crossed the line into Bucks. They placed some penalty upon them, but the nature of it we have not learned.

It has been said that John Fries had done his country some service during the Revolutionary War. At that time he was living at Charles- town, Milford township. He was in active serv- ice during the war. Between these periods, and while spending some time at home, he was the hero of a spirited affair. While the enemy oc- cupied Philadelphia a party of British Light

2II

THE FRIES REBELLION.

Horse, on a foraging expedition in the upper end of Bucks county, were returning to the city through Charlestown in the night. His wife, hearing the clatter of hoofs, got up and looked out of the window just before daylight, and saw the troopers marching by with a large num- ber of cattle in charge. She said to her husband, "Why, John, there goes a troop of Light Horse all dressed in red; and I guess they must be the British." Fries got up immediately and dressed, and went first to the houses of Hoover and Wy- kert, near neighbors, whom he awoke and inform- ed of what was going on. He then went around the neighborhood and aroused the people whom he headed and, with them went in pursuit of the retreating British. They overtook the soldiers near Spring House tavern, and compelled them to relinquish the cattle and hasten their march to Philadelphia. The cattle were driven back and returned to their owners. John Fries continued to reside in Milford township to the day of his death, which took place in 1818. He was buried in the graveyard at Charlestown, where his re- mains now lie, without a stone to mark their resting place. The allegation that Fries opened a tin store in Philadelphia after his pardon is wholly without foundation. Such a statement is found in a note at the conclusion of the pub- lished account of the trial, and was probably in- serted there on some rumor which prevailed at that day, without the author taking the trouble to satisfy himself of its truth. When we visited his son, Daniel, we questioned him particularly upon this point and he assured us that his father returned to Milford township, where he con- tinued to follow his old occupation to the day of his death. The same was stated to us by some of the old residents of Quakertown, who knew him well in their younger days. At his decease,

his son Daniel assumed the occupation of a ven- due cryer, which he followed until he removed to near Sumneytown, where he resided until his death. Another son, Solomon, lived at White- marsh and both of them left numerous descend- ants. The father of John Fries, whose name was Simon, came from Wales, and first settled in Maryland, but afterwards removed to Mont- gomery county, in this state, where he died.

We now conclude this historic episode of Bucks and Northampton counties, and take leave of the reader. In writing the preceding account of the "Fries Rebellion," we were influenced by two considerations ; the first a desire to give a correct account of what was an important affair in its day, and hitherto but imperfectly understood ; the second, a desire to do justice to those who played the leading parts. If we have succeeded in one or both desires, we have accomplished our purpose.

Of John Fries we have formed a more fa- vorable opinion than we entertained when we commenced writing. We believe him to have been an earnest and honest, but misguided man, who was moved to the course he took by what he considered his duty. The conduct of Mr. Adams shows him to have been actuated by a sense of duty, as he understood it and the pardon of the "insurgents" rescues his memory from some of the charges brought against him. He was no doubt influenced to some extent, by the high political excitement of the day, but he can- not be justly accused of cruelty in the share he had in the troubles of the period. All the actors in these scenes have long since passed beyond the bar of public opinion, and their acts should now be judged with fairness and candor from the standpoint of history, whose chiefest honor is impartiality.

CHAPTER X.

ORGANIZATION OF LEHIGH COUNTY IN 1812.

"For Lehigh was our joy and pride, Our glad, beloved river ;

And all around was charmed ground, Our home! delightful ever." -Augusta Moore.

Forty years after the organization of North- ampton county in 1752, the Allen family started a movement for the erection of a new county with Allentown as the county seat. Petitions were drawn up and presented to the Legislature, but the influence of the Penn heirs defeated the project. Mrs. Elizabeth Allen, the widow of James Allen, after the death of her husband, mar- ried Hon. John Lawrence, a United States Sen- ator from New York. The following letter from Mrs. Lawrence to Judge Peter Rhoads, of Allentown, dated November 22, 1792, contains information on this subject which has never be- fore been published. The letter reads:

"SIR :

"On consulting with my friends here respecting the division of the county, I find that if the proper steps are taken there is every prospect of success. The petitions are now preparing and shall be for- warded to you as soon as finished. I am informed that it will be necessary for them to be signed anew by those persons who signed the former ones and shall be obliged to you if you will inform me what you think the best method to be taken, as you were so kind when I last saw you as to offer your assist- ance in this business. If you would sketch out the lines of division between the counties, I would have them compared with those done here and would fix upon those which should be most advisable. If you would also endeavor to find out from the peo- ple of Bethlehem, that in case a division of the county should be brought about, in which they would wish to be included, in that of Easton or of Allen- town and let me know, it would be doing a great service.

"With respect to any expenses which may be in- curred in this business my children will very willing- ly pay a large proportion of them. It will be nec- essary that I should be acquainted with the determi- nation of the Moravians before the lines which are to divide the counties can be determined. I en- close a copy of one of the petitions, which has al- ready been presented. If you do not think it prop- erly drawn, you will make the necessary alterations and let me know as soon as possible your sentiments on the subject, with those of the Moravians, as there is no time to be lost.

"I will be much obliged to you if you will let Mr. David Deshler, when he calls upon you, read this letter, as I have not written so full on the subject to him as I have to you.

"I am Sir, your friend, and well wisher,

"ELIZABETH LAWRENCE.

"Philadelphia, November 22, 1792.

"To Peter Rhoads, Esq., Allentown, Northampton County."

Miss Anne Penn Allen, eldest daughter of James Allen, wrote a letter on the subject a few months later, as follows :

"SIR :

"I feel myself very much obliged by your two friendly letters which I certainly should have an- swered sooner had there been any interesting intelli- gence to have given you respecting the petitions. I am, however, very happy to inform you that many circumstances are much in favor of them and that our friends here think we have great reason to be sanguine. Your letters contained much advice which will be useful. I gave them both to a member of the Assembly who has a high opinion of your judg- ment and thinks great advantage may be derived from them. We have many friends here who in- terest themselves warmly in our behalf and who think we shall be successful in carrying our point. If any new ideas should occur to you on the subject I shall be very much obliged to you if you would let me hear from you, as I find your opinions are of great weight with many of the members of the As- sembly.

"I beg you to believe me, Sir, your friend and hearty well-wisher. ANNE P. ALLEN. "Philadelphia, February 7th, 1793.

"To Peter Rhoads, Esq., Allentown."

The population of the territory of Northamp- ton County, lying west of the Lehigh River had by 1810 so increased that the project of forming a new county was again advocated and this time met with success. On March 6, 1812, the As- sembly passed the act erecting Lehigh County. It was decreed by that law-

"That all that part of Northampton County, lying and being within the limits of the following town- ships, to wit, the townships of Lynn, Heidelberg, Lowhill, Weissenberg, Macungie, Upper Milford, South Whitehall, North Whitehall, Northampton, Salisbury, Upper Saucon, and that part of Hanover within the following bounds to wit, beginning at the Bethlehem line where it joins the river Lehigh, thence along the said line until it intersects the road leading from Bethlehem to the Lehigh Water Gap, thence along said' road to Allen township line, thence along the line of Allen township westwardly to the Lehigh, shall be and the same are hereby, ac- cording to their present lines, declared to be erected into a county henceforth to be called Lehigh."

The townships which have been organized since the erection of the county are Upper and Lower Macungie, formed by the division of the original Macungie, in the spring of 1832; Wash- ington township, taken from Heidelberg, on Dec. 6, 1847; Lower Milford, set off from Upper Milford, in January, 1853; and Whitehall, set off in 1867.

212

213

ORGANIZATION OF LEHIGH COUNTY IN 1812.

Northampton township once existed and has been lost, principally by absorption into the bor- ough, and afterwards the city, of Allentown. No record of its organization can be found, but it seems to have been recognized as a township as early as 1804. At that time the county of Northampton was redistricted for judicial pur- poses, and Northampton, Salisbury, and White- hall townships were made to constitute District No. 7. Elections for justices, constables, super- visors, school directors, and other officers were held until 1852. In that year a portion of Northampton was added to the borough of Al- lentown, and the remainder was doubtless at- tached to one of the bordering townships. At any rate it then ceased to exist as a township. What its precise boundaries were is not known.1

Location of the County-Seat .- Section 9 of the organizing act of March 6, 1812, authorized and required the Governor, on or before the Ist day of May following, to appoint three discreet and disinterested persons, non-residents in the county of Northampton, nor holding real prop- erty therein, whose duty it should be to fix upon a proper and convenient site for a court-house, prison, and county-offices within the county of Lehigh, and as near its centre as the situation would admit. It was provided that these com- missioners, or a majority of them, should, on or before the Ist of July, make a written report to the Governor in which they should certify and describe the site or lot of land they had chosen. Commissioners were also appointed to take pos- session of the property, and to assess, levy, and collect moneys for that purpose. It does not ap- pear that a site was selected within the time speci- fied by the act, as no purchase was made until Nov. 19, 1812. Upon that date William Tilgh- man (in his own right and by virtue of powers vested in him by an act of the General Assembly passed April 11, 1799, entitled "An Act for the benefit of Elizabeth Allen and Elizabeth Mar- garet Tilghman") sold to William Fenster- macher, John Yeakel, and Abraham Gresheimer, commissioners of Lehigh County, "in considera- tion of one hundred dollars lawful money and for other causes, two certain lots or parcels of ground adjoining each other, situate on the northwest corner of Hamilton and Margaret

I As no history of this township is given else- where in this volume, we present here a list of the justices of the peace elected in Northampton from 1840 to 1852 (those prior to the former year being given under the head of District No. 7 in the county civil list). They were as follows: Jacob Albright, 1840; Jonathan D. Meeker, 1842; James M. Wilson, 1844; John F. Holbach, 1848; George White, 1852.

(now Fifth) Streets, in the borough of North- ampton." These lots are one hundred and twenty feet in width by two hundred and twenty-five feet in depth on Fifth Street. The deed further specified that the lots were trans- ferred to the.commissioners, "to be by them held for the use and benefit of the people of the county, and for the purpose of erecting and building a court-house thereon, and such other public offices as may be deemed necessary for the said county of Lehigh." It was provided that the commissioners should "yield and pay there- for yearly, on the Ist day of January in every year, forever, the sum of four dollars lawful money to the party of the first part during his life," and after his death to Margaret Elizabeth Tilghman, her heirs and assigns, forever; "and the said party of the first part, for himself, his heirs, executors, and administrators, hereby cove- nants with the said party of the second part and their successors in office forever, that no part of the said yearly rent shall ever be demanded or received by the said party of the first part, his heirs, executors, administrators, or assigns, or by any other person or persons lawfully claiming or to claim under him or them, or by the said Elizabeth Margaret Tilghman, her heirs or as- signs, or any person or persons lawfully claim- ing or to claim under her or them; and that in case the said Elizabeth Margaret Tilghman, her heirs or assigns, shall not execute a release of the said yearly rent so as to extinguish the same, then the heirs, executors, and administrators of the said party of the first part shall and will pay the said rent forever, and keep and preserve the said parties of the second part and their successors in office, and the said County of Lehigh forever in- demnified from the payment of the said rent or any part thereof, and all costs and charges to be incurred on account of the same."

On the same date as the above-Nov. 19, 1812 -a lot sixty by two hundred and thirty feet, on the southeast corner of Margaret and Andrew Streets (Fifth and Linden), was transferred for a nominal sum to the commissioners to serve as a site for the county jail. The deed sets forth that this lot was bought by William Fenster- macher, John Yeakel, and Abraham Gresheimer, commissioners of Lehigh County, from Henry Pratt, Thomas W. Francis, John Ashley, Thom- as Astley, and Abraham Knitzing, of Philadel- phia, merchants, by their attorney, William Tilghman, in compliance with a request by Ann Penn Greenleaf, wife of James Greenleaf, now resident in the borough of Northampton.

An effort was made to secure the location of the county-seat at Millerstown, now Macungie borough, and another to have the public build-

214

HISTORY OF LEHIGH COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

ings placed upon Market Square in Allentown. The Republikaner, in a contemporaneous issue, says that a bill was presented to the Legislature in reference to the latter location, but was not called up. Another bill, petitioning the appoint- ment of commissioners, was called up on the Ist of April, 1814, and rejected by the vote of the Speaker. In the mean time, the jail had been built upon the lot secured for the purpose, and the county commissioners had advertised on Jan. 7, 1813, for contracts for the furnishing of stone, lumber, and other materials with which to build a court-house.

Organization of the Courts.1-The act by which Lehigh County was created provided and declared "That the inhabitants ..... be entitled to and shall at all times hereafter have all and singular the courts, jurisdictions, officers, rights, and privileges to which the inhabitants of other counties of this State are entitled by the Consti- tution and laws of this Commonwealth," and "that from and after the third Monday in De- cember next the Courts of Common Pleas and of General Quarter Sessions, in and for the County of Lehigh, shall be opened and held at the house now occupied by George Savitz,2 in the borough of Northampton (Allentown), in the said county of Lehigh, until a Court House shall be erected in and for said county."

Under this authority the first term of court was opened. The following is from the court record :

"December the 21st, 1812. This being the day on which the several courts of Common Pleas, of the Quarter Sessions, of Oyer and Ter- miner and General Jail Delivery, and of the Or- phans' Court in and for the County of Lehigh,

I The Third Judicial District, of which Lehigh, upon its erection in 1812, became a part, was created April 13, 1791, and was composed of the counties of Berks, Northampton, Luzerne, and Northumberland. Jacob Rush was its first president judge, and was succeeded by John Spayd in 1806. Robert Porter was elected in 1809, and was upon the bench when Lehigh County was organized. In 1831, Garrick Mallory was elected, and he was succeeded by John Banks, in 1836. The original district remained un- changed until April 14, 1834, when the State was re- districted, and Berks, Northampton, and Lehigh Counties were made to compose the Third District. On April 5, 1849, Berks County was detached and organized as the Twenty-third District. Northamp- ton and Lehigh remained the Thir 1 until the State was again redistricted by act of Assembly, April 9, 1874, when Lehigh became the Thirty-first District, as it still remains.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Lehigh county, Pennsylvania and a genealogical and biographical record of its families, Vol. I, Part 40

Author: Roberts, Charles Rhoads; Stoudt, John Baer, 1878- joint comp; Krick, Thomas H., 1868- joint comp; Dietrich, William Joseph, 1875- joint comp; Lehigh County Historical Society Publication date: 1914 Publisher: Allentown, Pa. : Lehigh Valley Publishing Co. Number of Pages: 1158

Author: Roberts, Charles Rhoads; Stoudt, John Baer, 1878- joint comp; Krick, Thomas H., 1868- joint comp; Dietrich, William Joseph, 1875- joint comp; Lehigh County Historical Society
Publication date: 1914
Publisher: Allentown, Pa. : Lehigh Valley Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 1158