USA > Pennsylvania > Progressive Pennsylvania; a record of the remarkable industrial development of the Keystone state, with some account of its early and its later transportation systems, its early settlers, and its prominent men > Part 27
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THE MUHLENBERG FAMILY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
presidency of Thiel College, at Greenville, Mercer county, at the urgent request of the friends of the college, a Lu- theran institution, resigning this position after several years' service. He died at Reading on March 21,1901. Dr. Muhlenberg was especially distinguished for his thorough knowledge of the Greek language and literature. He was a voluminous writer on educational and other subjects.
(7.) Rev. William Augustus Muhlenberg, D. D., son of Henry William Muhlenberg and grandson of Frederick Augustus Conrad Muhlenberg, was born in Philadelphia on September 16, 1796, and died in New York on April 8, 1877. This scion of the Muhlenberg house did not adhere to the Lutheran faith but became a clergyman of the Prot- estant Episcopal Church. From 1817 to 1821 he was as- sistant rector of Christ church, Philadelphia, under Bishop White, and soon afterwards entered upon ministerial work in New York. He became an eminent churchman. He was noted for his zeal and success in educational and char- itable work within the bounds of the Episcopal Church and also for his literary attainments. He is especially re- membered as the author of several notable hymns, includ- ing "I Would Not Live Alway," "Like Noah's Weary Dove," and " Shout the Glad Tidings !"
(8.) The Patriarch Muhlenberg was not only the father of three gifted sons but he was also the father of four daughters of superior intelligence, two of whom married Lutheran ministers. The first of these daughters, named Eve Elizabeth, was married to Rev. Christopher Emanuel Shulze and became the mother of another Lutheran min- ister, John Andrew Melchior Shulze, who was born in Berks county on July 19, 1775. After following his sacred calling for a few years the Muhlenberg blood that was in his veins led him into the field of political activity, and after filling acceptably a number of minor elective posi- tions he was chosen Governor of Pennsylvania in 1823 and again in 1826, serving in all six years. He was one of the most popular Governors Pennsylvania has ever had. At his second election to the Governorship he was virtu- ally without opposition, only a few votes being polled against him. He died on November 18, 1852, at Lancaster.
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The details above presented may be summarized as follows : Dr. Muhlenberg, the founder of the Muhlenberg family, brought order out of disorder in the Lutheran Church of this country, and by his individual exertions established its influence and authority upon firm founda- tions. His two oldest sons, Peter and Frederick, were Representatives in Congress when Washington was Presi- dent, Peter having previously served with honor as one of Washington's generals during the whole period of the Revolutionary war and Frederick having previously served in the Continental Congress. Peter was afterwards elected a United States Senator from Pennsylvania. Frederick was the Speaker of the House during the First and Third Congresses. He was twice the unsuccessful candidate of the Federalist party for Governor of Pennsylvania. Dr. Muhlenberg's third son, Gotthilf, was a naturalist of world- wide reputation. Gotthilf's son, Henry Augustus Philip, was a prominent leader of the Democratic party, long a Representative in Congress, Minister to Austria, and twice the Democratic candidate for Governor of Pennsylvania. Henry Augustus, son of Henry Augustus Philip, was a Representative in Congress. Gotthilf's grandson, Frederick Augustus, was distinguished as a college professor and college president. William Augustus, the grandson of the first Speaker of the House of Representatives, was a prom- inent Episcopal clergyman, especially noted as a writer of hymns that are sung in all our churches. John An- drew Shulze, a grandson of the Patriarch through one of his daughters, was twice elected Governor of Pennsylvania.
The second daughter of Dr. Muhlenberg, Margaretta Henrietta, married Rev. John Christopher Kunze, D. D., a native of Germany, who emigrated to this country in 1770. In 1784 he became the pastor of Christ church, (Lutheran,) in New York, which position he filled until his death in 1807. Dr. Kunze was a very learned man. The third daughter, Mary Catharine, married Francis Swaine, a politician of note in his day and brigadier general of the State militia in 1805. The fourth daughter, Maria Salome, married Matthias Richards, who was a Representative in Congress for two terms, from 1807 to 1811, and held
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THE MUHLENBERG
other public offices. One of her sons, Rev. John William Richards, D. D., born in 1803 and dying in 1854, entered the Lutheran ministry. His son, Rev. Matthias Henry Richards, D. D., born in 1841 and dying in 1898, was eminent as a scholar and as a Lutheran minister and as a writer. He was for many years professor of the English language and literature in Muhlenberg College.
Another son of John William Richards, Henry Melchior Muhlenberg Richards, born in 1848, saw active service in the Union army during the civil war, graduated at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1869, and served with distinction in the navy until 1875, when he resigned. In 1898 he was the executive officer of the United States ship Supply in the Spanish war. He is a liberal contributor to Pennsylvania German literature.
Such is the brief record of the distinguished founder of the Muhlenberg family in this country and of his most noted descendants, many of whom have also achieved dis- tinction and accomplished results worthy of lasting remem- brance by all Pennsylvanians. Nearly all were ministers of the Gospel, and nearly all were public-spirited citizens whose talents fitted them for public life. Nearly all were gifted with literary tastes and nearly all were accomplish- ed scholars. Two of the sons of the founder were promi- nently identified with the Revolutionary cause and were conspicuous in the organization of the Government which was created by the Constitution of 1787. As we stated at the beginning, no State in the Union can boast of a family which has contributed to our country a larger number of eminent men than this family of Pennsylvania Germans.
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CHAPTER XXIX.
GENERAL ARTHUR ST. CLAIR.
THE most distinguished of all the military heroes of Western Pennsylvania and one of the most distinguished of the whole country in the times that tried men's souls was Major General Arthur St. Clair, of Westmoreland county.
Arthur St. Clair was born at Thurso, Scotland, on March 23, 1736, according to a communication from the historian, George Dallas Albert, which was published in the Greensburg Democrat in March, 1898, after the publi- cation of his History of Westmoreland County. General St. Clair died on August 31, 1818. The year of his birth has always been given in the cyclopædias and elsewhere as 1734, with the month and the day of the month omitted. Sir Thomas St. Clair, a noted genealogical authority in England, insists that St. Clair was born in 1734.
Young St. Clair was educated at the University of Edinburgh and afterwards was a student of medicine. Tiring of his medical studies he abandoned them in a little more than a year and in 1757 he entered the British army as an ensign. In 1758 he crossed the Atlantic in Admiral Boscawen's fleet and in the same year served under General Amherst at the siege and capture of Louis- burg. In 1759 he served under General Wolfe at the cap- ture of Quebec. In this year he was commissioned a lieu- tenant. In 1760 he married Phoebe Bayard, of Boston, a daughter of Balthazar Bayard and Mary Bowdoin, both of Huguenot descent. On both her father's and mother's side she was of distinguished lineage. . In 1762 Lieuten- ant St. Clair resigned his commission in the army and in 1764 he is said to have come to Pennsylvania.
In Smith's Life and Public Services of Arthur St. Clair we find the first definite reference to St. Clair's presence in Pennsylvania. He is there said to have established his residence in Pennsylvania, first at Bedford in 1764 and afterwards in Ligonier valley. After 1764 there is a hia-
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tus of several years in Smith's account. The narrative proceeds : " On the 5th of April, 1770, he was appointed surveyor for the district of Cumberland, which then em- braced the western part of the State." (The county of Cumberland is meant.) Smith continues : "A month later the offices of justice of the court of quarter sessions and common pleas, and member of the proprietaries', or Gov- ernor's, Council for Cumberland county was conferred up- on him. When Bedford county was erected in 1771 the Governor made St. Clair a justice of the peace, a recorder of deeds, clerk of the orphan's court, and prothonotary of the court of common pleas for that county. The same year St. Clair, in connection with Moses Maclean, ran a meridian line, nine and a half miles west of the meridian of Pittsburgh. In 1773 Westmoreland was erected from Bedford, when Governor Penn sent St. Clair appointments corresponding with those held by him for Bedford."
Smith does not explain the inducements which led St. Clair to locate at Bedford in 1764, but John N. Boucher, in his recently published History of Westmoreland County, throws some light on this subject and also upon the move- ments of St. Clair in immediately succeeding years. He says : " Shortly after his marriage he removed to Bedford, Pennsylvania, having become acquainted with the Penns, who were then proprietaries of the province. As agent for them he looked after their possessions in the western part of the province and took up lands for himself. In 1767 he was appointed commander of Fort Ligonier, which posi- tion he filled for over two years. After the opening of the land office in 1769 he was closely identified with the for- mation of new counties and in the sale and settlement of western lands. His brother-in-law, Captain Bayard, also came here, and together they took up large tracts of land in the southwestern part of the county. In these old boundaries he is sometimes designated as Lieutenant and sometimes as Captain St. Clair."
Albert says that in May, 1770, Arthur St. Clair and others whose names are mentioned "were among the jus- tices of the peace appointed for that portion of Cumber- land county west of Laurel Hill," which indicates that
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St. Clair was a resident of Ligonier valley at that time. The Proceedings of the Governor and Executive Council of the province say that on November 23, 1771, a special commission was appointed to hold a court of oyer and terminer at Bedford to try Lieutenant Robert Hamilton, of His Majesty's 18th Regiment of Foot, who was charged with the murder in Bedford county of Lieutenant Tracy, of the same regiment. This commission was composed of the "three eldest justices of the peace" in Bedford coun- ty, John Frazer, Bernard Docherty, and Arthur St. Clair. Ligonier valley was then in Bedford county.
Just when St. Clair removed his residence from Bed- ford to Ligonier valley does not appear. His home was probably at Ligonier. Albert gives a list of the lands ac- quired by him in Westmoreland county between 1767 and 1793, which list was obtained from the records of the land office. It embraces in all 8,270 acres. In addition Albert shows that St. Clair had obtained title to 2,611 acres in other western counties in Pennsylvania, 2,000 of which were in Crawford, Erie, and Lawrence counties. The latter were presented to St. Clair by the State of Pennsylvania after the Revolution. Other lands were lo- cated in Somerset county. Albert also says that a land warrant issued to St. Clair on November 23, 1773, for 592 acres in Ligonier township, Westmoreland county, mentions that he was "commandant at the post of Fort Ligonier in April, 1769." He also quotes (page 38) from a permit in St. Clair's handwriting given to Frederick Rhorer " by Arthur St. Clair, late Lieut. in his Majesty's Sixtieth Reg. of foot, having the care of his Majesty's fort at Ligonier," granting to Rhorer the use of "a certain Piece of Land in the neighborhood of Fort Ligonier," the permit being "given under my hand at Ligonier this 11th day of April, 1767," the signature of "Ar. St. Clair" following.
As has been stated, Westmoreland county was estab- lished in 1773. On April 6 of that year its first court was held at Hannastown. Albert gives a copy of St. Clair's commission as prothonotary of the county, issued on Feb- ruary 27, 1773, by Richard Penn, Lieutenant Governor of the province. He served as prothonotary of this first
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court and continued to fill the office until 1775, when he resigned to take part in the stirring events of that year.
In the controversy between Pennsylvania and Virginia over the western and southwestern boundaries of Penn- sylvania St. Clair was not only the fast friend of the Pennsylvania proprietaries but he displayed great activity in protecting their interests. Early in 1774, when John Connolly, the agent of Lord Dunmore, Governor of Vir- ginia, took possession of Fort Pitt, which had been aban- doned by the British Government because of the difficul- ties then pending between the colonies and the mother country, and issued a proclamation calling on the people to sustain him, St. Clair, one of the justices of the peace of Westmoreland county, issued a warrant and had him arrested and confined in the jail at Hannastown, then the county-seat of Westmoreland county, from which he was released upon entering bail for his appearance at court. Connolly afterwards gave further trouble, which the his- torians of Pennsylvania have fully described.
We next hear of St. Clair after the battle of Lexing- ton, which occurred on April 19, 1775. Two meetings of the citizens of Western Pennsylvania were held in May of that year to protest against British oppression of the colonies. One meeting was held at Pittsburgh and the other at Hannastown. Both meetings were well attended. It is certain that St. Clair attended the Hannastown meeting. At both meetings resolutions were unanimously adopted which expressed sympathy with the people of Massachusetts in their opposition to the oppressive meas- ures of the British Government and also promised aid in resisting further oppression of any of the colonies. The exact text of the Hannastown resolutions has been tran- scribed for these pages by Dr. C. H. Lincoln, of Washing- ton, from Peter Force's American Archives, (4th series, vol. 2, pages 615 and 616,) and is literally as follows.
MEETING OF THE INHABITANTS OF WESTMORELAND, PENNSYLVANIA.
At a general meeting of the inhabitants of the County of Westmore- land, held at Hanna's Town the 16th day of May, 1775, for taking into consideration the very alarming situation of this Country, occasioned by the dispute with Great Britain :
Resolved unanimously, That the Parliament of Great Britain, by several
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late Acts, have declared the inhabitants of the Massachusetts-Bay to be in rebellion, and the Ministry, by endeavouring to enforce those Acts, have attempted to reduce the said inhabitants to a more wretched state of slav- ery than ever before existed in any state or country. Not content with violating their constitutional and chartered privileges, they would strip them of the rights of humanity, exposing lives to the wanton and unpunish- able sport of a licentious soldiery, and depriving them of the very means of subsistence.
Resolved unanimously, That there is no reason to doubt but the same system of tyranny and oppression will (should it meet with success in the Massachusetts-Bay) be extended to every other part of America : it is there- fore become the indispensable duty of every American, of every man who has any publick virtue or love for his Country, or any bowels for posterity, by every means which God has put in his power, to resist and oppose the execution of it ; that for us we will be ready to oppose it with our lives and fortunes. And the better to enable us to accomplish it we will immediately form ourselves into a military body, to consist of Companies to be made up out of the several Townships under the following Association, which is de- clared to be the Association of Westmoreland County :
Possessed with the most unshaken loyalty and fidelity to His Majesty, King George the Third, whom we acknowledge to be our lawful and rightful King, and who we wish may long be the beloved Sovereign of a free and happy people throughout the whole British Empire ; we declare to the world that we do not mean by this Association to deviate from that loyalty which we hold it our bounden duty to observe ; but, animated with the love of liberty, it is no less our duty to maintain and defend our just rights (which, with sorrow, we have seen of late wantonly violated in many in- stances by a wicked Ministry and a corrupted Parliament) and transmit them entire to our posterity, for which purpose we do agree and associate ourselves together :
1st. To arm and form ourselves into a Regiment or Regiments, and choose officers to command us in such . proportion as shall be thought necessary.
2d. We will, with alacrity, endeavour to make ourselves masters of the manual exercise, and such evolutions as may be necessary to enable us to act in a body with concert; and to that end we will meet at such times and places as shall be appointed either for the Companies or the Regiment, by the officers commanding each when chosen.
3d. That should our Country be invaded by a foreign enemy, or should Troops be sent from Great Britain to enforce the late arbitrary Acts of its Parliament, we will cheerfully submit to military discipline, and to the ut- most of our power resist and oppose them, or either of them, and will coin- cide with any plan that may be formed for the defense of America in gen- eral, or Pennsylvania in particular.
4th. That we do not wish or desire any innovation, but only that things may be restored to and go on in the same way as before the era of the Stamp Act, when Boston grew great, and America was happy. As a proof of this disposition we will quietly submit to the laws by which we have been accustomed to be governed before that period, and will, in our several or associate capacities, be ready when called on to assist the civil magistrate in carrying the same into execution.
5th. That when the British Parliament shall have repealed their late obnoxious Statutes, and shall recede from their claim to tax us, and make
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laws for us in every instance, or when some general plan of union and rec- onciliation has been formed and accepted by America, this our Association shall be dissolved ; but till then it shall remain in full force ; and to the ob- servation of it we bind ourselves by every thing dear and sacred amongst men. No licensed murder ! no famine introduced by law !
Resolved, That on Wednesday, the twenty-fourth instant, the Town- ship meet to accede to the said Association, and choose their officers.
In a letter from St. Clair to Joseph Shippen, Jr., dated at Ligonier, on May 18, 1775, St. Clair says : "Yesterday we had a county meeting and have come to resolutions to awe and discipline, and have formed an Association, which I suppose you will soon see in the papers. God grant that an end may be put to any necessity for such a proceedings. I doubt their utility and am almost as much afraid of success in this contest as being van- quished." A letter from St. Clair to Governor John Penn is dated at Ligonier, on May 25, 1775, and in part reads as follows : " We have nothing but musters and commit- tees all over the country, and everything seems to be running into the wildest confusion. If some conciliating plan is not adopted by the Congress America has seen her golden days; they may return, but will be preceded by scenes of horror. An Association is formed in this county for defense of American liberty. I got a clause added by which they bind themselves to assist the civil magistrates in the execution of the laws they have been accustomed to be governed by."
It will be noticed that St. Clair's letter to Joseph Ship- pen is dated on May 18, and that he says that the Han- nastown resolutions were adopted "yesterday," the 17th, whereas it is said in the American Archives that the Han- nastown meeting occurred on May 16. The date given by St. Clair may have been a slip of his pen.
The extracts from St. Clair's letters show that he was not in sympathy with the spirit of some parts of the Han- nastown declaration. Like many other opponents of Brit- ish oppression at that time he doubtless hoped that the British Government could be induced to change its policy in dealing with the colonies. In this hope he was soon to be undeceived, when he promptly and manfully took his stand with the advocates of colonial independence. Then
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began his remarkable career, to use his own phrase, "for defense of American liberty."
Soon after the meeting at Hannastown active meas- ures were taken throughout that small part of Western Pennsylvania which was then partly settled to organize the able-bodied men into military companies. In this work of preparation St. Clair took an active part. At the same time the Continental Congress, in session at Phila- delphia, resolved to raise an army to defend the colonies against British aggression, and of this army Washington was appointed commander-in-chief. Pennsylvania was called upon for its quota of troops, 4,300, and afterwards during the same year for four additional regiments. On January 3, 1776, St. Clair was chosen colonel of the Sec- ond Pennsylvania Regiment and was soon ordered to take part with his regiment in the disastrous expedition to Canada which was commanded by General John Sulli- van. In this campaign St. Clair acquitted himself with great credit in aiding to save Sullivan's whole army from capture after the disastrous affair at Three Rivers. For this service he was appointed in August of this year a brigadier general, joining the main army under Wash- ington, who was then retreating across New Jersey before General Howe. Albert says that St. Clair "fought under the eyes of the commander-in-chief in the closing battles of this campaign, at White Plains, at Trenton, and at Princeton, " and adds that this campaign made St. Clair a major general. Boucher says that St. Clair suggested to Washington the movement which brought on the bat- tle of Princeton. On February 19, 1777, he was commis- sioned a major general. In March of the same year he was detailed by Washington as adjutant general of the army for a short time.
In 1777 St. Clair was in command at Ticonderoga, from which position he was compelled to withdraw but was acquitted of all blame by a court martial ; he partici- pated in the battle of Brandywine in the same year as a volunteer aide to Washington and had a horse shot from under him; and he was at Valley Forge during the ter- rible winter that followed. Johnson's Cyclopedia epito-
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mizes the remainder of his services during the Revolution as follows : He assisted Sullivan in 1779 in fitting out his expedition against the Six Nations ; he was a member of the court martial which tried Major André; he was a commissioner to treat with the British at Amboy in March, 1780 ; in August of that year he was assigned to the command of La Fayette's corps of light infantry during the latter's absence ; in October of the same year he was assigned to the command of West Point ; he took a conspicuous part in the suppression of the mutiny in the Pennsylvania Line in January, 1781 ; he distinguished himself in the Southern campaign which terminated at Yorktown ; and he subsequently served with distinction in the Southern campaign under Greene. Albert says that St. Clair was also intrusted by Washington with the ar- duous duty of organizing the levies of Pennsylvania and New Jersey and sending them to the field. He appears to have possessed McClellan's talent for organizing troops.
It is a fact of great significance that throughout the whole period of the Revolutionary war St. Clair possessed the confidence of Washington in an eminent degree, who frequently honored him with important appointments.
The war over St. Clair retired to private life. When he entered the army he had removed his family to Potts- town, then in Philadelphia county but now in Mont- gomery county. In 1783 he was elected · a member of the Council of Censors of Pennsylvania for the county of Philadelphia, his colleague being Frederick A. Muhlenberg. General Wayne was a member of the Council from Ches- ter county. On January 2, 1784, the Council appointed a committee of five to report upon those articles of the Constitution of 1776 which were defective and required amendment, and of this committee St. Clair was a mem- ber. The work done by this committee was arduous and thorough and paved the way for the Constitution of 1790. In the votes upon the report of the committee Muhlen- berg, Wayne, and St. Clair always voted together.
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