History of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Part 118

Author: Bean, Theodore Weber, 1833-1891, [from old catalog] ed; Buck, William J. (William Joseph), 1825-1901
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, Everts & Peck
Number of Pages: 1534

USA > Pennsylvania > Montgomery County > History of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania > Part 118

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).

At the conclusion of his Congressional term, or shortly after, on the 17th of August, 1829, he was called by Governor Shulze, near the close uf his administration, to fill the post of attorney-general of the State, which he held one year, till the accession of Governor Wolf, in January, 1830. This was the last public office he occupied, but he continued at the bar till 1834. While attending an arbitration at Spang's hotel he dropped in a fit of apoplexy, and died instantly, in his forty-sixth year.

It would not be within the possibilities of this work to hunt up his legislative record, and he has been so many years dead that even his personal qualities have faded from the memories of most of the living. Ilis widow and some of his children reside in Philadelphia, very wurtby and respectable peuple.

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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.

" HATBOROUGH, Oct. 9, 1817.

" Mr. Stiles : There is a certain congeniality of souls, sympathy or fellow-feeling which attaches men of similar manners, habits and prin- ciples together. The following will explain in a satisfactory manner why Mr. Markley, the secretary of the corresponding committee, rallies round the standard of Mr. Findley, and issues liis fulminating anathemas against all who oppose him. The officers of the militia who served on the court-martial for the trial of delinquents for non-performance of militia duty in the fall of 1814 employed Dr. Hahn, member of Congress from Montgomery County, to get from the Treasury of the United States compensation for their services and gave him power of attorney for that purpose. About the month of February last Mr. P. S. Markley went to Washington, and without any authority from those officers, got the money, amounting to between five and six thousand dollars. When the officers heard that he had got the money they called on him for their pay. Ile pretended at first that there was difficulty in settling the accounts, and that he had not got the money, but afterwards had tu acknowledge that he had made use of it. Some of the officers had not been paid in August last, and 1 shall ascertain in a few days whether or not there are some yet unpaid. One of the officers called on him for settlement, and agreed to throw off fifty dollars if he would pay him the rest. Mr. Markley gave him a check for the balance, deducted the fifty dollars, but when the check was presented to the bank, Mr. Markley had no money there. He was then obliged to get it discounted at a broker's, and finally the officer was threatened with a prosecution from the bruker and had to redeem the check hinself.

"One of the brokers says, May 23, 1817, 'he (Mr. Markley) was here ou Wednesday two weeks and requested us to wait until Thursday fol- lowing. We did, but instead of our money we received a letter from him informing ns if we would wait one week longer he would certainly pay us. Sir, we have shown a very great degree of forbearance and have manifested a disposition to accommodate you both, until all hopes of receiving anything from Markley are at an end.'

"Again June 14, 1817, 'we received another proof of Esq. Markley's equivocation, he having written that he would positively pay on Wednes- day following, which we did not believe at the time, yet we have waited till now. You cannot expect further indulgence.' What say you, Colo- nel Binns, thou great censor morum at the 'altar of whose conscience' nothing but the pure incense of truth can be offered up, does not this look like 'two deliberate falsehoods ?' does it not look like 'setting the seal to his own infamy ?' Could Mr. Markley, like his Democratic candi- date, have had the treasury to put his hand into, or a kind brother-in- law Robert to draw notes for him, he would no doubt have taken up his checks or notes more punctually. But let us have his own apology in his own words, 'I never was so damnaldy disappointed in money.' 0) ye rocks, and mountains, and hills ! cover me trum the awful and final de- nunciation which still hangs over my devoted head, and is only sus- pended by the mercy and forbearance of the honorable committee. Citi- zens of Montgomery County, I do most sincerely ask your pardon for recommending l'. S. Markley to the attorney-general for his deputy. I was deceived in the man, and shall 'in the course of a few days,' by virtue of the power and authority to me given, by nobody to proscribe any man who differs from me in opinion, 'denounce him' unworthy of the confidence of any honest man. I jmit my name to this paper and pledge myself to Mr. Markley and the public to prove, if required, the truth of the farts stated. I would, with all due respect to Mr. Markley, beg leave to suggest that when he prepares his indictment against me for a libel against Mr. Findley, he would please to add this as count to the bill, and we will make une job of it.

"N. B. BOILEAU.1

" P. S .- I have now before me the correspondence between the officer, Markley and the broker, and a written statement from the officers, which 1 will attest on outh if necessary."

1 Nathaniel Brittan Boileau, who was eight sessions a member of the lower House of Assembly, elected Speaker of that body, and thence made secretary of the commonwealth for three terms by Governor Snyder, was in many respects the greatest man Montgomery County ever produced. His equal and compeer at the time was Hon. Jonathan Roberts, who, with him, were the ruling spirits of young Montgomery during the first twenty years of the present century.

lle was the son of Isaan and Rachel Brittan Builean. The father of Isac Boileau was a Frenchman, driven from France among other Huguenots, and exiled on the revocation of the Edliet of Nantes, which gave toleration to Protestants. Along with a shipload of other refugees, he landed on Staten Island about 1075. After remaining there some time, during which Isaac Boileau was born, many of them, he of the

The Democrats carried the county and State, elect- ing William Findley Governor, who three years later was succeeded by his competitor, General Hiester. The want of a representative system in making party nominations led to dissatisfaction among the rank and

number, emigrated to Bucks County and to the neighborhood of Phila- delphia. The father of Nathaniel B. came to Moreland township and purchased a farm of eighty acres, land now owned by Mr. Lewis R. Willard, about two miles northeast of the present borough of Hatboro'. Here Nathaniel B. Boileau was born in 1763, and also two sisters. When Nathaniel B. was thirty-three years old, in 1796, his father sold to him his farm just referred to, and at the same time a tract of twenty acres in Bucks County, for five hundred and fifty pounds, the deed for both heing certified "before Robert Loller, one of the Judges of the Court of Common Pleas." This property, or the first part of it, he exchanged some time after for a farm of two hundred acres on the southern limit of the ber- ough, land now owned by Judge W. II. Yerkes and the Bates family.

Isaac Boilean was a well-to-do farmer, and gave his only son the best education possible, sending him to Princeton College, where he gradu- ated. His mother must have been advanced in life at his birth, for per- sons still living remember ber residing at Hatboro' as Iate us 1812, when she was well-nigh a hundred years old. We do not know when Mr. Boileau graduated at college, but it must have been previous to 1788, when he was twenty-five years of age, for he had married Hester Leech in 1795, who bore him one sun, Thomas Leech Boileau, she dying in her thirtieth year, in 1797. Of the events of his life from the time he grad- nated till he began to figure as a politician, in 1797, we have no record beyond the fact that he was interested in Fitch's efforts to perfect luis bunt to run by steam. Mr. Boileau himself was an ingenious man, accustomed to the use of tools, though but a farmer, and constructed one of Fitch's model steamboats. During college vacations, as he related in after life, he made the paddle-wheels of said boat, and assisted the inventor in testing its capacity on some of the ponds near his father's residence. In this period of eight or ten years, it is presumed, he was dividing his time between farm labor and studies, preparatory to the active public life he afterwards led. Ile was undoubtedly conversant with all the writings of the political fathers of our young Republic, and it is safe to say that few men of his time more heartily drank in the "spirit of seventy-six" than Nathaniel B. Boileau. Public documents and political papers from his pen, found in the newspaper files of the first quarter of the present century, atmudantly show this.

Some time after he made the exchange of properties he divided (in INDI) the large farm on the York road, and built a very fine mansion un oue part of it for his own nse, which at that time was one of the finest residences in the county. The remainder of the property, with the old homestead, abont thirty-five years after, he sold to Joseph B. Yerkes, Esq. The stone for building his fine house was qharried with his own hands, and he also ung the cellar. This dwelling, adjoining boller Academy, he occupied many years, till compelled by losses in his old age to part with it also.

As before stated, MIr. Builean was elected to the General Assembly in 1797, at the bottom of the legislative ticket, along with Cadwallaudler Evans, Benjamin Brooke and l'eter Muhlenberg. This was before the division of voters into Federals and Republicans, for all the others were afterwards Feilerals, as Boileau was subsequently known as an active Republican. Mr. Boilean was thus returned three times, making four sessions he attended continuously. In 1802 he was left at home, but the session of 1803-4 he was sent back again, us also the sessions of 1806-7-8. lle stand- alone on the records of the county as having represented it in the Lower House for eight years. During his last session, in Isos, he was elected Speaker on the 19th of January. But we must go back and detail his legislative acts in their order, as they are recorded in the newspaper files consulted.

During the years 1803-4-5-6 he was paymaster of the county volunteer militia. On December 17, 1804, Mr. Boileau obtained by appropriation two thousand dollars for the endowment of the Norristown Academy, and in 1805 had charge of the articles of impeachment against Judges Edward Shippen, Jasper Yates and Thomas Smith. He made a very able and elaborate report and argument against them before the Senate on behalf of the House, Int the former body acquitted the accused by thirteen to eleven,-not a two-thirds vote. At this time party spirit began to run very high, Republicans charging Federalists with sympathy for England, and the latter stigmatizing their opponents with the name of Jacobins, and with being in favor of " French atheists." In 1806, Mr. Boileau, aa

509

THE PAST AND PRESENT POLITICS.

file of all parties, and by the close of James Monroe's second term the people were ripe for political revolu- tion. The caucus party nominated William H. Craw- ford, of Georgia, Tennessee put up General Andrew Jackson, the Federal Republicans advanced the can-

the leader of the House of Representatives, moved a committee to draw up an address to President Jefferson, urging hin to suffer his naDie to be used as a candidate for a third term. The Honse adopted the miotion, and Mr. Boilean presented a very able paper, which was passed by both Houses (in the House by fifty-six to nineteen) and sent to Washington. During this year politics were fiercely contested, and a Democratic-Re- publican Association formed, of which Mr. Boilean was president, Dr. William Smith vice-president, Jonathan Roberts, Jr., secretary, and Stephen Porter treasurer.

The year 1807 was a busy one for Mr. Boileau, and his name appears as connected with almost every public movement. On Jannary Ist he presented a petition from members of the German Lutheran Church of Barren Hill asking for "permission to raise three thousand dollars by a , priations tu fully equip the troops, Mr. Boileau nuule advances from

lottery for its benefit." lle also framed the law for the establishment of the Montgomery County poor-house, and got it passed. This year also a bill, adopted by bis agency, authorized the raising of one thousand four hundred dollars by lottery to build an English school at Sumneytown, and on February 25th, being chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, he made a report on state finances, exhibiting the revenue in a healthy condition.

This year the outrage of the British frigate "Leopard " firing on the "Chesapeake " in time of peace, and taking out of the latter somse al- leged British seanien, produced a profound feeling of exasperation all over the country. Public mertings were held in different states to take action upon it, and prepare the public mind for a becoming vindication of the outrage or a declaration of war, Such a meeting of enrolled militia was held in our county, and Mr. Boileau was appointed chair- man of a committee of correspondence to confer with other such meet- ings or bodies, with a view of bringing public sentiment up to the point of resistance.

On February 13, 1807. Mr. Boilean offered a resolution to appoint a committee to inquire into the expediency of repealing an act of Assembly, passed in 1777, making the common law of England the law of Pennsyl- vania, and to report by bill or otherwise. This wasa time of much anti- English feeling in the country, and it wasalleged impossible for unlearned persons to know under what laws they were living.

As before stated, party spirit ran very high, and much dissatisfaction was felt and expressed in " Republican " circles at the austere and aris- tocratie bearing of Governor MeKean. So much opposition was mani- fested against his renomination for a third term, in fact, that Simon Snyder came within a few voter of beating him in the canvass before the legislative caucus. Accordingly, a motion was nule in the House dur- ing the last year of his third term to " inquire into his official conduct," but it was lost by a tie vote. Mr. Boileau recorded in favor of laying the mutiou on the table, -that is, in the negative. In January, 1808, Mr. Boileau moved that " our Senators in Congress be instructed, and our Rep- resentatives be requested, to support a bill for opening water navigation, by canal, between the Delaware and Susquehanna," and Mr. Boileau and Mr. Leib called np a bill which had been previously reported in favor of opening water communication between the Schuylkill and Sus- quehanna Rivers.

As before stated, Mr. Boileau was elected Speaker of the House on De- cember 8, 1808, and made a pertinent speech on the occasion. On the 20th of the same month, however, Simon soyder, then just elected Gov- ernor, appointed him secretary of the commonwealth, to which office he was reappointed December 17, 1811, and December 20, 1814. On his resignation to accept the secretaryship, Richard T. Leech, probably a relative, was elected early in 1809 to the vacant seat.

It is a curious fact that one of the last legislative acts of Mr. Boileau, as one of the first signed by the new Governor (Suyder), wasan omnibus lottery scheme, entitled an act to raise seven thousand dollars by that means to enable an association in Montgomery County " to promote the culture of the vine and to pay their debts and accomplish the objects of their association ;" also including two thousand, as before stated, to build a school-house at Sumneytown in which to teach English.

In the fall of 1808 Colonel or Judge Robert Loller, an eminent and wealthy neighbor, died, leaving the bulk of his estate, after the death of his widow, which happened in ISIn, to build and endow Loller Acad- emy, and Mr. Boileau was left sole exerntor, a position of great trust

didacy of John Quincy Adams, while the admirers of Henry Clay started him upon the race for Presi- dential honors. The confusion among leaders natu- rally confounded their followers. Many changes oc- curred among those who had been prominent in local

and responsibility. He was charged in the will with the duty of build- ing and providing for the seminary according to his own judgment and ĮdlaD>. This institution Mr. Boileau erected during IS11-12 on ground adjacent to his property, and disbursed some eleven thousand dollars, the residue of the estate, with great wisdom and fidelity.

The war breaking ont in the summer of 1812 greatly increased the duties and responsibilities of Governor Snyder and his secretary. Though bred only a civilian, he had to assume the duty of aid to the Governor. and was so appointed in May of that year, in company with John B. Gib- son, Wilson Smith and Jobn Binns, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. About that time, or soon after, a draft was issued for fourteen thousand men for the defense of the State and nation, and there not being appro-

his private purse. In fact, the first mortgage given on his land was to raise three or four thousand dollars to procure blankets for the soldiers. and either through the informality of law or the modest unselfishness of Mr. Boilean, that money was never repaid him. This is given on the au- thority of one who had it, many years after, from his own lips. Mr. Boileau and his family were Republican or Democratic in all their habits and instincts. Instead, therefore, of his wife and son removing to Lan- caster and Harrisburg, and living in style, as the manner of most officials now, his family remained at Ilathoro".

The eight years of legislative service, and nine as secretary of the commonwealth under honest Simon snyder, caused no abatement in the rigid morality and sterling patriotism of Mr. Boileau. All the aninos- ities felt against him, therefore, were purely political, and the able Dian- ner in which he had filled the post of secretary for three terms, having the full confidence of Mr. Suyder, justified the expectation that be would be taken up for Governor to succeed him. Nearly the last political or military appointment he filled was that of acting adjutant-general, frotu May, 1>16, to January, 1815. In March, 1817, however, the legis- lative caucus, or State Convention, assembled to place a Democratic can- clidate for Governor before the people. William Findley, who had been a representative in Congress almost from the organization of the govern- meut, Isaac Weaver, of our county, Speaker of the Senate, and the sec- retary, N. B. Boileau, were informally nominated. When it came to a vote, Findley received ninety-nine to Boileau's fourteen. Whether personal chagrin at his defeat by Mr. Findley had anything to do with warping his clear judgment in the matter, or whether Mr. Boileau's allegations were well-grounded, cannot now be known, but Mr. Boilean charged the nomination to corrupt influences exerted by Findley, and he broke with his party by writing a bold letter in which he made that charge in unmistakable terais. Mir. Boileau did not hesitate in that letter to es- ponse the side of Joseph Hiester, Mr. Findley's Federal opponent. This letter got into the hands of the latter party, which was used in the canvass, and a crisis in Mr. Boilean's political life was reached at once.

The Democratic County Committee appointed by the nominating State Convention, consisting of Philip S. Markley, Henry scheetz, Benjamin Reiff, Philip Reed and Philip Yost, prepared and issued a secret circular just before the election, denouncing Mr. Boileau as a traitor for charg- ing that Findley got his Domination corruptly. Mr. Boileau retorted briefly, but sharply, charging that Markley had collected a large sunt of bounty money that he had appropriated to his own use, and paraded some documenta fastening the charge upon him.

Except an active advocate of the anti-Masonic movement from 1829 tu 1834, this Iliester and Findley campaign was Mr. Boileau's last appear- ance in politics. In reference to the letter that led to his exit from the Democratic party, the editor of the Norristown Herald, alliling to it, says : " We have never been the eulogist of )Ir. Boileau, but bis integ- rity and probity have never by us been questioned."

Mr. Boileau joined the anti-Masonic movement with considerable zeal, and when Joseph Ritner was elected Governor by that party he received the appointment of register of wills in January, 1836, and held it three years, his son Thomas acting as his deputy and clerk. This was the last public office he filled.

It only remains further to refer to MIr. Boileau's exalted private life. sum np bis political career and record his peaceful death. In sterling integrity. patriotic aims, ingrain Republican principles and unselfish be- nevoletive Mr. Boilean has had few, if any, superiors in our county. One

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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.

politics. A leading editorial in the Herald of July 24, 1824, says :

" The I'residential question is now the topic of disjte with the major- ity of the Democratic editors, some of whom have already commenced with that vulgar abuse which characterized their proceedings in the gubernatorial contest in 1820-23. The Democratic Press and American Sentinel are the warm supporters of the canens candidates, winle the Co- lumbian Observer and Franklin Gazette, on the 4th day of March last, dis- mounted their old horse, called ' undeviating Democracy,' and mounted a more popular steed, called 'old Hickory.' It is said that Old Hickory frequently halts and flies from the Democratic cause and gets in the track of Federalism, a most abominable and unforgiving offense. He is followed by John Binns, Walter Lowrie, Jonathan Roberts1 and other worthy coadjutors.

that knew him best of any says : " He was very benevolent. The indigent never went away from his door empty-handed ; he gave to the poor as long as he had anything to give. He worked on the farm in haying and harvest till past middle life. He was very industrious and never idle ; was very hamly with tools for working in wood; made nearly all his farm implements, even wagons, carts, plows, harrows, etc. Hle was the most capable and trusty business man of the time to settle estates, act on arbitrations and the like.

The most interesting remains of thistruly great and good man are two oil-portraits in the possession of Mr. William Sprogel, of Hathoro', one of them taken early in life and the other when he was secretary of the commonwealth; and the large Bible containing family records in the bold, clear handwriting of this eminent man, as also a paintedl life-size portrait of Mr. Boileau's first wife, are now in possession of Mr. John Jacobs, of Norristown, whose wife is a sister of the wife of Thomas L. Boileau, deceased.

Thus died in poverty Nathaniel L. Boileau, who was born rich, married two wealthy wives, was industrious, honest, frugal and patriotic. He outlived all his early friends and relatives, except his un fortunate son, till he was nearly left alone in the world, and went up like Lazarus to his reward on high. As his life was no shamn, so there are no "lies " nor fulsome eulogies on his tomb stone, the inscription on which, in Abington Presbyterian Churchyard, reads as follows :

"N. B. BOILEAU,

DIED MARCHI 16TH, 1850, In the 88ths year of his age."

1 Jonathan Roberts was invited to stand for the Legislature, an invita- tion which, with much reluctance, he accepted. At that time public at- tention became engrossed with the duty of selecting a successor to Presi. dent Monroe. There were several candidates, all claiming to be Demo- crats,-Crawford of Georgia, Adams of Massachusetts, Clay of Kentucky, Jackson of Tennessee and Calbonn of South Carolina,-each having some show of support. Mr. Roberts favored the nomination of Crawford. who was the favorite of the intellect of the Republican or Democratic party. llad not his health failed him the probability is that he would have proved the strongest candidate. Supposing that hy obtaining a seat in the Legislature at that time he would thereby promote the chances of Crawford's election, Mr. Roberts accepted the nomination, and was elected. Almost single-handed and alone he stood out against the tide of Jacksonism that swept through the Pennsylvania Legislature. I this his standing as a public man was rendered quite unpopular, not- withstanding he was once thereafter returned to his seat. Ax the last of hie legislative services he took an active and lending part in the great in- ternal improvement scheme which at that time started the prosperons career which has since been pursned by the Keystone State. That great system was not adopted in the form Mr. Roberts desired, owing to the re- fusal of the Senate to incorporate the essential provision for a sinking fund to eventually liquidate the ontlay. He was urged to stand as a can- didate for the next session of the Legislature, but he felt it was time for him to retire and look more after his private affairs. One feature nt the improvement enactment was for a canal hard to serve without pay, as an expedient to get rid of thrones. This plan was only partially success- ful, as ille and incompetent men pressed themselves into even that public position. Governor Shultz at length sent a commission to MIr. Roberts, with the request that he would accept it. Being anwilling to show re- Inctance to execute a policy which he had so earnestly supported, and to keep the appointment out of improper hands, be consented to fill the plare, although at great private sacrifice. He continued to fulfil the duties of his office for threo years, much to the advantage of the State. This brought his public services up to the year 1827, when Jacksonistn

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History of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Part 118

Author: Bean, Theodore Weber, 1833-1891, [from old catalog] ed; Buck, William J. (William Joseph), 1825-1901 Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Philadelphia, Everts & Peck Number of Pages: 1534

Author: Bean, Theodore Weber, 1833-1891, [from old catalog] ed; Buck, William J. (William Joseph), 1825-1901
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, Everts & Peck
Number of Pages: 1534